{"id":2062,"date":"2013-04-10T11:44:44","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T11:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcodersblog.com\/?p=2062"},"modified":"2025-05-21T13:57:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T13:57:41","slug":"are-medical-practices-moving-forward-at-the-same-pace-as-healthcare-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcoders.com\/blog\/are-medical-practices-moving-forward-at-the-same-pace-as-healthcare-reforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Medical Practices Moving Forward at the Same Pace as Healthcare Reforms?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Healthcare Reforms or Obamacare that had been facing a few political hurdles may have finally broken through all shackles and assumed greater acceleration. While healthcare reforms or Obamacare are largely perceived to pro-patient, physicians or medical practices have no option but to move with the requisite adaption.<\/p>\n

Amongst a host of reforms, the recommendation of the Affordable Care Act, which seeks to make medical care affordable to every US citizen, may possible be the most demanding adaption ever to have been undertaken by medical practices.<\/p>\n

This ominous burden plus the pulls of other reforms may have actually impeded their progress, which is currently way short of the expected. In fact, the industry sources believe that medical practices across the US are still struggling with implementation stage of adaptation to healthcare reforms mandates.<\/p>\n

What makes these healthcare reforms so daunting is that:<\/p>\n

Browse all: Medical Billing<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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  • Medical practices would find themselves treating more number of Medicare patients than ever before. The extension of Medicare to pre-existing cases as well as dependents under the age of 26 could prove to be exhausting of physicians, who are likely to be disproportionate or short against the patient population. According to a reliable estimate the extension of Obamacare could leave the primary care sector short by 90,000 physicians by 2020!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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  • The likelihood of reimbursements being progressively reduced for specialties \u2013 contrary to the general feeling of reimbursements improving with patient volume, the proposed Medicare cuts would reduce physicians\u2019 reimbursements by as much as $700 billion. Because the Medicare and states-specific Medicaid account for nearly half of the nation\u2019s health insurance, qualitative appreciation under ACO model of care can only help off-set the Medicare cuts with incentive-based collaborative healthcare delivery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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  • The compulsory implementation of EHR under the HIPAA-5010 mandate, which is likely to disrupt operational flow, consume considerable capital expenditure, as well as train or source staff to conduct EHR systems in the way that best supports patients\u2019 privacy and security norms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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  • Fee schedules will get more and more constricted under the new healthcare reforms. While Medicare and Medicaid fees schedules will set the trend of rationalized fee-schedules, it may eventually be followed by the commercial payors as well. Physicians, amidst such dual-impact, may well be forced to optimize their billing efforts to avail maximum reimbursements. And, the process of migrating to a higher system of medical billing may be costly as well as gradual.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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