Doctors dropping out of Medicaid

NEW YORK, March 16 (UPI) -- U.S. patients are finding it difficult to get health services under Medicaid as more doctors drop out of the program over inadequate payments, observers say.

Doctors say reimbursements from Medicaid are so low -- as little as $25 per office visit -- they are losing money on every patient, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

While enrollments in the program are increasing -- 3.3 million people were added last year -- a nationwide trend of state cuts to Medicaid leaves many patients unable to find doctors or dentists who will treat them, the Times said.

One Michigan physician dropped out of the program when the state cut the payments by 8 percent in an effort to deal with its budget deficit.

"My office manager was telling me to do this for a long time, and I resisted," Dr. Saed J. Sahouri said. "But after a while you realize that we're really losing money on seeing those patients, not even breaking even. We were starting to lose more and more money, month after month."

Medicaid payments to doctors averaged only 72 percent of the rates paid by Medicare in 2008, and Medicare reimbursements are typically considerably less than those of commercial insurers, the research group Urban Institute said.