Well duh! It's because Medicaid is BROKE, not because doctors are the anti-christ. Imagine if you complete an assignment at YOUR job and the client tells you they're ONLY going to pay you 60%...and not within 30 days, within 5 MONTHS. Would you have them as a client?

I think not.

this is a huge multipronged problem. I'm a pediatrician in missouri and see kids on medicaid, but it's not just about the money involved, it's also a huge problem getting any testing done on the kids (xray, labs, etc). The HMO medicaid plans are worse than the straight state medicaid and won't cover anything but a very small number of meds. I have to argue with the medicaid plans every time I want to do something more than a basic xray on a child. One of the medicaid HMOs can't seem to decide if I'm on the plan or not. They tell one family I am and the next I'm not. The reimbursement is absolutely terrible. The numbers quoted in the article don't even do the problem justice. For the typical well child physical, medicaid pays maybe $25. That means if I have a family with three kids coming in for physicals, the office (not just me) make $75 for an hour's worth of time. This sounds like a lot of money, but when you have the overhead of office space, supplies, malpractice insurance and salaries for your office staff, it doesn't even come close to paying the bills. Throw in med school loans and it just gets worse. Don't forget also that the job never really stops. Docs and other healthcare workers don't just get to leave at 5pm every day and say good bye until morning. We have to be on call, do research on how best to treat difficult to diagnose patients, and yes, I'm up at night worried about whether I made the right decisions.

I love what I do and most people in health care love their jobs as well. I'm not a "greedy rich doctor" as is sometimes insinuated in these articles. At the end of the month, my wife (who also works) and I barely have enough to put some money in savings and have a little bit of fun. I wouldn't change what I do, and I don't feel that I deserve millions for what I do either, but as my parents often said, love doesn't pay the bills. It's not fair to anyone concerned how screwed up the medicaid system is.

All of this simply proves-once again-the need for a COMPLETE overhaul of of medical care to include single payer, total national health care system for all instead of the crap we have now where there is the VA for veterans, Medicaid for the poor, Medicare for the old,  emergency rooms for the uninsured, rip off health insurance with huge deductables and copays, (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida just upped my premiums 28% without any claims made with rubber stamp approval by the all Republican regime ofof our Guv "Scott the Crook"-his company massively defrauded Medicare at the all time record amount!!!!) etc., etc., etc.   

Can we put this particular study under the 'No Duh' folder?

Many existing laws and regulations apply specifically to pregnant women. Several provisions of the Affordable Care Act offer new benefits for expecting mothers. Search online for "Penny Health Insurance" if you need affordable insurance for yourself or your wife.

So...we have multiple physicians wishing to express their views of the system, but none chose to address the focus of the article.

Why did these kids have to wait 22 days longer for an appointment? Tell me what goes on at the office when Mom says it's a Medicaid client without whining about student loans and insurance...

why do doctors think patients should be concerned about their student loans? my sons both have masters in their chosen fields and had high loans they have to pay out of their own money.

They have to wait longer because most practices have a limit of the number of medicaid patients they will see in clinic. This is due to the low payment of medicaid. They must limit the medicaid spots available in order to keep enough appointments open for private insurance so they can actually get paid an acceptable amount of money in order to stay in business. If a doctor's office took all medicaid patients they would go out of business

I think you are exactly right.  Most people, when they work, want to get paid.  It's not about whining, and it doesn't make the doctors all bad.  We all comparison shop, so do doctors.  So do the families of the children on Medicaid.  We make choices and have to be willing to live with the consequences.  If the states keep the reimbursement rate so low, doctors won't accept their patients.  Why should the doctors be the ones taking the cut when they are not the ones making the bad choices?  They are not the ones who made the states insolvent, they are not the ones who don't earn enough to purchase regular insurance.  It's not their responsibility to cover everyone else's costs.  No one would expect their mechanic or their lawyer or their contractor to do that.

When I go to the doctor I pay always 25 euros if its a generalist and 35-50 if its a specialist.

I can tell you they do what they want in life without any bills troubles because I am one them !

I just cant understand about this money thing in us, this is the ONLY job where money doesnt matter ! even for studying it ITS HUGE to pay so much to study so much to save ppl ! in which world are we living ??

americans are being fooled by the company insurance and pharmaceutics, they make a HUGE amount of money on your back teaching you thats fair medical treatment for all is COMMUNISM ... blablabla

American Dream ... (if your healthy)

It's a shame, but you cannot blame doctors, dentists or other medical providers. Medicaid, in many instances, does not reimburse for the amount the health care provider has to spend to do the treatment. As horrible as it sounds, poor parents should consider their "potential" children's needs before bringing them into this world.

This story is based on health care in ILLINOIS where the govt. is broke and can't pay it's bills. I have heard of instances where it has taken three years for the state to reimburse doctors for Medicare. Some other states do better...it would be profitable to look at those states who are handling their Medicare more efficiently and figure out what they are doing right. Kudos to the doctor who is being upfront about what the problems in his office are. Obviously he cares deeply about his patients and wants to be part of a solution for the poorer ones. Our good doctors must have some means for their reimbursement.

This is exactly what you can expect when government takes control over health insurance. Medicaid pays less than private insurance because the first priority of government is to control costs, not make sure you get health care. Therefore, physicians who need to make a living prioritize clients who come with more money. As I explained in my book Remaking America: Welcome to the Dark Side of the Welfare State, this is what government-run health care did to Sweden and it is what Obamacare will do to America. Sweden has a 43-percent higher mortality rate from curable medical conditions than America does, and the only difference between the Swedish health care system and ours is that theirs is run entirely by government.

Down here in Texas, Governor Perry wants to opt-out of Medicare. Claims the state can do better! Hogwash! Then we won't have medical care for kids, pregnant women, and people on SSI.

I have never met a poor doctor yet. I know that most private doctors lose money on Medicaid, however. But there are some private doctors who run "Medicaid mills," and also dentists, sock it to the government for unnecessary expenses and don't do exams properly as per regulations.

Medicaid patients are best seen by government clinics that get extra funds elsewhere. So why then even have Medicaid?

And children are not the only ones waiting! Perhaps we will have health care for all when more people do what one man just did: he staged a bank robbery for one dollar so he could get medical care.

They should have asked teachers of children with severe health impairments. We've all seen this for years!

Guess why I fought putting my adult disabled child on Medicare and am now paying for private out of my pocket?

The insurance isn't worth the card it's printed on... and don't even ask doctors about waste! It's ridiculous what we pay to RENT equipment that should be bought outright thereby saving thousands per year per child.

It's a problem I face multiple times every day. From the area where I work, the closest specialists that will accept my Mcaid kids are often over TWO HOURS drive away with a several-month waiting list. No one wants to be paid for often only 5% of any job. Even the rural hospital where I am employed just quit serving patients with one particular Medicaid HMO, because, where they used to reimburse a reasonable amount, simply showed up one day with a take-it-or-leave-it payment that wasn't enough to pay the light bill for the time of the average appointment, let alone staff's wages! It wasn't my decision, because like 90% of Family docs I am employed by a larger organization. The old solo-practice, country doc who made housecalls has long since gone the way of the dinosaur. I have no business choices: they tell me who I can and can't see, and they tell me how many patients I need to see per day to stay employed (reasonable or not). They track how much busine$$ my services brought to the hospital, and then they give me the brownie points for only 45% of that, cuz that's their collection rate. Is a poor collection rate my fault? No. They tell me what they need me to do, when I will be on call, when the various mountains of paperwork had better be done, and then they act all concerned when they see my car in the parking lot 16-18 hours per day. Well, it's not because I have no where else to spend my "freetime." I am the mother of a young child!

I would no longer be in this profession, were it not for my patients. If I can help just one more person breathe easier, just one more kid to not get sick, if I can buy just six extra months for a grandmother to see her new grandchild born or to let a worn-out soul die in peace, my life and career have meaning. I will not quit being a doctor as long as there are people I can help and the hospital board consents to employ me. I see a day coming, though, when I will no longer be allowed to give my patients the care they need (it's getting close to that in some areas). When the reimbursement rate drops so low that the hospital can't make money on me, they will let me go just like so many others in this recession, and they will hire 2 Nurse Practitioners to fill my spot. Meanwhile, I live in an $80,000 house, drive a 2004 Subaru Outback, and at 40 my family is very close to finally paying our way clear of the bills that mounted during school (except for the student loans -- I'll be still paying on those after I'm dead). I'm neither griping nor whining (shame on you, zhovti sobaky); these are just intellectual realities. Like it or lump it. I don't expect my patients to care about my issues (hello peggy morris-2664656) -- I'm here to help THEM. But I do hope that one day the general public will wake up to reality and realize that medicine is NOT the career it used to be and that, since I worked my tail off for more than half my life in order to become a physician, and since I paid/am paying for it myself with my own personal student loan debt, and since I'm not (yet) part of a 100% socialist society, IT IS MY CHOICE to continue serving my patients. (Raq666--GROW UP. Crimson Wife owes neither you nor anyone else ANYTHING!) It's my CHOICE to care. I don't automatically become public property just by virtue of graduating from four of the toughest educational years on this planet. I OWE you nothing. I owe my patients, by virtue of the physician-patient understanding, my utmost compassion, thorough up-to-date knowledge, helpful explanation, continual positive regard, and my absolute BEST attitude and effort every time. And quite honestly, God help the "health plan" that gets in the way of my patients' care! They do suddenly find themselves dealing with an almost "mama bear" ferocity. It's my commitment to my patients, to fight on their behalf. It's just hard sometimes to have invested such length and intensity of time and effort, only to be taken completely for granted by society as a whole. Ah, well. C'est la vie!