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Compared to most similarly large and wealthy countries, the U.S. has fewer practicing physicians per capita but has a similar number of licensed nurses per capita. Looking specifically at the hospital setting, the U.S. has more hospital-based employees per capita than most other comparable countries, but nearly half of these hospital workers are non-clinical staff.
The new health reform law poses questions about how the increase in the insured population will affect the demand on the health care workforce.
This study, published in a Health Affairs Web exclusive, provides the first national and state-by-state update of Medicaid physician fees since 2003. Medicaid has historically reimbursed physicians under fee-for-service at levels below what Medicare and private health insurers would pay for the same services.
The Kaiser Family Foundation's biennial , conducted from March 26 through October 11, 2001, is based on a nationally representative random sample of 2,608 physicians whose major professional activity is direct patient care. The survey was released in four parts.
As part of the Kaiser Family Foundation's National Survey of Physicians, this portion of the survey examines differences in provider payment rates from different payors, such as Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurers, and explores providers experiences with these different payors and with providing treatment for uninsured and low-income patients.
Congressional debates about the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) raise questions about whether doctors are willing to see Medicare patients. This issue brief examines multiple data sources to assess beneficiaries’ access to physicians, particularly vulnerable beneficiaries with greater health needs and other disadvantages. It examines the share of doctors who are participating physicians as well as those who have opted-out of the Medicare program to privately contract with Medicare patients. It includes State analyses of rates of physicians who are accepting new Medicare patients as well as patients with private health insurance and Medicaid.
A new report, The Rising Cost of Living Longer: Analysis of Medicare Spending by Age for Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare, from the Kaiser Family Foundation takes a detailed look at per person Medicare spending by age and by service among the nearly 30 million people covered by traditional Medicare in 2011
Changes in Medicare’s private contracting laws could have significant implications for beneficiaries, doctors, and the Medicare program. This brief summarizes the three options that physicians and practitioners currently have for charging Medicare patients, explains how private contracting works in Medicare under current law, and reviews current proposals on changes to private contracting in Medicare, as well as their implications for patients, physicians, and the Medicare program.
This Visualizing Health Policy infographic examines state policies related to abortion and their intersection with clinical practice. Nine of 10 reported abortions in the United States are in the first trimester. Between 2003 and 2012, the abortion rate decreased 18% among women aged 15 to 44 years.
This perspective provides additional information on state plans related to the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) primary care rate increase after the 100% federal financing ends December 31, 2014. The data in this report were collected as part of KCMU’s Annual Medicaid Budget Survey, conducted by Health Management Associates with the support of the National Association of Medicaid Directors,
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