Physicians don’t offer as much free care as they used to

derrickM. · Silver Member Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 182

In this fast world, physicians as well as other people seemed to be constrained by time and money, which don’t allow them anymore to offer free care. Doctors today complete their residencies with around $119,000 in debt.
In the mid 90’s, the number of physicians who offered free care was three quarters but today has that number dropped to two thirds. The same trend follows all major specialties with surgeons having the highest rate of free care and pediatricians the lowest.
The reason of such trend seems to lie in the stagnant reimbursement rates from the government and because more physicians are leaving solo practices to join large group practices and may not have the control of what type of patients they will be seeing. The percentage of doctors who provide charity care drops to 66 % when they practice with 11 to 50 other physicians and the number goes further down to 62 % when they practice in a group of more than 50 physicians.

This represents a big problem because there are almost 46 million people without insurance in USA. This means that uninsured people will have to look for help in emergency room where costs are higher and service less efficient.

Physicians don’t offer as much free care as they used to

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