47% of Oahu MDs Refusing New Medicare Patients

[TexasTowelie]

News Release From CROWN CARE, October 23, 2016 (excerpts)

Many of our clients request help in finding a new primary care doctor. We asked Oahu physicians if they accept new patients and found almost a third would not. Even those who would accept were rejecting complicated or elderly patients….

Data analyzed obtained from Oahu primary care practitioners including family practitioners, geriatricians, and internists were tabulated for the following:

463 of the 479 active primary care practices in Oahu were contacted between 2/11/16 and 8/26/16 and questioned about current acceptance of new patients. The remaining 16 MDs were unreachable despite numerous phone calls and messages.

145 (31%) of all primary care MDs sampled were no longer accepting any new patients regardless of insurance coverage. Of these, 7 would consider family and friends of existing patients and 15 would consider taking new patients at some point of time in the future.

246 (53%) of MDs were accepting most new patients including some Medicare. However, 17 of these stated they would only accept certain Medicare plans.

72 (16%) providers were still accepting new patients with non – Medicare insurance only. They limited their new patients to commercial insurers. While most of these stated they would continue to follow their existing Medicare patients, 7 stated they would not follow any Medicare patients at all even if they were in the practice.

Read more: http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/18473/Survey-47-of-Oahu-MDs-Refusing-New-Medicare-Patients.aspx