Medicare, Health Insurance Cuts Hurt Doctors with Small Practices

There is a sad reality facing many doctors in America who run their own businesses. Due to smaller reimbursements from health insurance companies, increasing business expenses and drug costs, and frequently changing regulations; doctors are running out of money to run their small practices. This information comes from "Small Business: Doctors going broke," by Parija Kavilanz of CNN Money. This is not only affecting family practice doctors, but also oncologists, cardiologists and just about every other specialty.

Believe it or not, half of all U.S. doctors operate in a private practice, so the loss of this industry would really hurt Americans' health care choices. Medicare cuts have hurt doctors with small businesses. Cardiovascular services saw 35-40% cuts in Medicare recently and there is a 24.7% cut in Medicare doctors' pay pending. Sadly, these cuts could force some doctors to close their small practices. Doctors have been going with less or no pay and taking out loans just to cover the payroll costs at their practices.

Medicare cuts are based on the state of the economy and health insurance companies base their reimbursements on what is happening with Medicare. Since doctors have been trained in medicine, they have to do added research to properly run a small business. Let's hope for some regulation and some better luck for doctors running small practices. While hiring another person is low on the priority list, it is wise to have someone with a business background to run a medical practice and not all doctors have that.