The survey included questions on physician practices trends, Medicare/Medicaid and the healthcare form law. More than 2,000 physicians completed this survey.
Practice
• 56 percent of physician respondents work in private practice. Of these, 6 percent claim to be leaving due to reimbursement cuts and high overhead costs.
• The remaining 44 percent work in the hospital setting, in a practice setting owned by a hospital or as locum tenens and independent contractors.
• Of those not working in private practice, 51 percent reported leaving private practice in the last five years.
• The majority (84 percent) of respondents plan to continue their careers in medicine through 2013. The remaining 16 percent plan to go part-time, retire or leave medicine.
• The most common reasons physicians plan to leave medicine in 2012 include economic factors, healthcare reform and fatigue.
Medicare/Medicaid
• While a majority of surveyed physicians are accepting new patients, only 75 percent said they were accepting new Medicare patients and 64 percent were accepting new Medicaid patients.
• Mississippi, Texas, California, Oregon and Texas have the highest number of physicians not accepting new Medicare patients.
• New Jersey, California and Florida have the highest number of physicians not accepting new Medicaid patients.
• 10 percent of physicians are not seeing Medicare patients at all.
Staffing
• Private physicians are more likely to prefer physician assistants, whereas hospital-employed physicians are more likely to use both physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
Healthcare reform
• A majority (74 percent) of physician practices are not participating or have no plans to participate in accountable care organizations.
• The remaining plan to participate (9 percent) or are already participating (17 percent).
• Overall, physician practices rate the healthcare reform law as a “D.”
• 70 percent do not believe the law will curb healthcare costs.
• 61 percent do not believe the law will improve healthcare quality.
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