It looks like it will be required for everyone to purchase some type of insurance beginning around 2004. Medicaid is looking to be expanded. Medicare is currently scheduled for a 21 percent reduction in payment of services. Adjust this for a 10 percent practice expense increase and the net loss for PT is currently around 11 percent. So basically you are getting paid less for doing the exact same thing. Of course this is only Medicare B services. I guess the trend has been for insurance companies to follow suit on what Medicare does. So this probably means less compensation from insurance companies not much later. Of course the cut may never happen. It is the physician fee schedule and they are anticipated to fight the impending cuts which are scheduled for March, 1 2010.
Now for the expansion of Medicare and insurance in general, I don't know. Logic makes me think that if you have more potential patients then demand will increase. Then again from what I've heard a larger copay will start being needed from patients for PT services. This would then decrease the demand because people don't like to pay out of pocket.
Anyone else agree or disagree with this. It's only what I've read. I'm certainly no expert.
