Half the nation’s doctors don’t like Obamacare-mandated penalties for hospital readmissions and poor healthcare quality, a new survey finds.
About 50 percent of primary care physicians say the increased use of quality metrics to assess provider performance will negatively affect care. Only about 22 percent find the opposite, the survey from Kaiser Family Foundation and Commonwealth Fund reveals.
The doctors appear to be revolting against Obamacare’s push to align Medicare payments towards the quality of care rather than a single fee for service. The survey provides a glimpse into how healthcare workers tasked with making this shift feel about the changes.
The federal government recently announced that more than 2,000 hospitals would face fewer Medicare payments next year due to high hospital readmissions.
About 52 percent of physicians found those penalties, which can add up to a 3 percent reduction in each Medicare payment, are having a negative effect on care. On the flip side, only 12 percent say they are having a positive effect.
Nurse practitioners and physician assistants appear to be more amenable to the quality metrics but are still more likely to see negative impacts than a positive effect, the survey said.
Another key statistic in the survey is that about 47 percent of doctors and 27 percent of nurse practitioners and assistants are considering early retirement due to recent trends in healthcare.
“This continues a 20-year trend of physician dissatisfaction with market trends in healthcare,” a release on the survey said.
The survey was based on interviews with about 1,624 primary care doctors and 525 nurse practitioners and physician assistants. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points for doctors and 5 percentage points for nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
