Specialist Doctors Head for Exit as US Shifts Payments

The Obama administration’s push to transform the way the US pays for healthcare is splitting the medical profession, as family doctors embrace changes that oncologists, neurologists and other specialists are concerned will cause turmoil.

The government set a timetable last week to extinguish Medicare’s “fee-for-service” system, which rewards the quantity of care over quality. That’s adding to pressure on physicians who have been debating whether to join their local hospital, merge their practices into ever-bigger groups or get out of medicine.

Specialists warn that patients in some areas of the country may have difficulty finding their services as small, rural practices close and the doctors join larger companies.

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Source: Boomberg Business