This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
AAO: Federal budget cuts may restrict Medicare patients’ access to eye care
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Automatic cuts in the 2013 federal budget will adversely affect Medicare patients and jeopardize access to care, the American Academy of Ophthalmology announced.
The cuts, part of the sequestration, took effect March 1 and total $85 billion. They include a 2% reduction in Medicare physician payments.
“President Obama and members of Congress are grappling with some extremely serious financial and economic issues that clearly need be addressed,” David W. Parke II, MD, CEO of the AAO, said in an AAO news release. “While most economists agree that the nation’s budget deficit is not sustainable, most everyone would concur that among the essential services provided by the government is the health care safety net that Medicare provides to this nation’s seniors. The Academy strongly urges Congress to recognize that a 2% cut may impact practices such that it will force some of them to restrict access to non-urgent care.”
In an informal member survey conducted by the AAO, 72% of respondents said they would be forced to “make decisions that will negatively affect the ability of their Medicare patients to receive the highest quality of medical care,” according to the release.
The survey showed that 43% of respondents said they would be forced to close their practices to new Medicare beneficiaries or limit the number of new Medicare patients they treat. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they would be forced to restrict access of current Medicare patients to urgent care treatment only. Almost 11% said they would have to consider changing or ceasing participation in Medicare.
The poll showed that 82% of responding members said 40% or more of their patients are Medicare beneficiaries; 47% said Medicare beneficiaries comprise more than 60% of their patient load.
Michael X. Repka, MD, AAO medical director for governmental affairs, said the cuts will adversely affect seniors.
“Eye disease disproportionately affects the elderly,” Repka said. “This survey clearly makes the connection between the impact of eye disease on seniors and the need for these patients to have ready access to quality eye care through Medicare. This is an issue that must be addressed both immediately and well into the future as ophthalmologists, who are medical and surgical eye care providers, will have an increasing number of elderly patients who will require their services.”
The AAO surveyed 1,761 members between Feb. 27 and March 1.