How Often Do Physician Offices Accept Medicare and Medicaid?

SK&A released its report titled, "Physician Office Acceptance Government Insurance Programs," which showed 83.6 percent of medical providers accept Medicare and 67 percent accept Medicaid, though a decline may be imminent.

The Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act will give 30 million Americans access to healthcare, many on Medicaid. But 31 percent of physicians said they would not accept new Medicaid patients, according to a National Ambulatory Medical Care survey.

SK&A's survey of 271,451 office-based physicians found larger, affiliated practices have higher Medicare and Medicaid acceptance rates, while smaller, non-affiliated practices have lower rates. Offices with daily volumes greater than 31 cases had an acceptance rate of 85.5 percent for Medicare and 69.6 percent for Medicaid.

Also, healthcare system-owned and hospital-owned practices are more likely to accept Medicare, at 89.1 percent, compared with non-hospital or healthcare system-owned practices, at 82.7 percent. Medicaid acceptance is about 83 percent for hospital or healthcare-owned practices and only 64 percent for non-hospital or system owned.

The top specialties accepting Medicaid are dialysis, critical care medicine and nephrology. The lowest acceptances rates come from bariatrics, occupational medicine and holistic medicine.

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