Texas doctors threaten to drop Medicaid, fear cuts

Garrett reports:
AUSTIN – Doctors in the Dallas area and across Texas are threatening to opt out of Medicaid because of payment cuts, which would further damage the state's already uneven delivery of health care to the poor.

The 1 percent trim to provider fees that starts Sept. 1 sounds modest. But doctors, insurance industry officials and health care experts widely see it as the first of many hits coming to doctors' wallets as Texas' fiscal woes deepen.
http://dallasne.ws/beKzMn

No relief seen for Dallas' shortage of family docs

Garrett reports from the AHCJ conference in the Windy City:

Dallas and most areas of Texas are running pretty low on family doctors, pediatricians, internists and other front-line docs. Experts predict primary care doctors will be in huge demand as the federal health care overhaul law in coming years boosts how many people have insurance coverage.


Pay levels, though, aren't high enough to solve the problem any time soon, Irving-based doctor recruiter Kurt Mosley said this afternoon at the Association of Health Care Journalists meeting in Chicago.
http://tinyurl.com/29y8bv2

Medicaid cuts: Will docs head for exits?

Garrett reports:

Doctors, dentists and hospitals see little hope of escaping trims to their state payments for treating low-income Texans, starting Sept. 1.

But a center-left think tank warned today that the cuts to providers "would represent a tremendous step backward" in the state's recent push to lure more doctors to participate in Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled.