My mother recently relocated. She had been enrolled in a Medicare Advantage Plan that was structured as a health maintenance organization. She never had to worry about finding doctors or lab facilities, since the HMO was large and had specialists and their own internal facilities, etc. When she moved out of the area, she had to disenroll from her HMO and find a different Medicare Advantage Plan. However, she is having trouble finding doctors who will accept her current and new plan. It is a NATIONAL plan, but local doctors are unwilling to accept it -- in fact, they're reluctant or refuse to accept any Medicare patient. What can be done to find a physician who will take her insurance? The company she is using says it's up to her to find the doctor. Any suggestons?

Medicare Advantage Plans are very tricky, as a lot of doctors shun the paperwork associated with it and does not accept patients who have it. I can't blame the doctors though, a lot of these plans are shady, they pay much less for a longer period of time... also doctors are wary of these plans, because it's not clear from whom and where they could file claims against it should the plan not pay.

I guess the only solution to your problem is to shop around. Where did your mother get her plan? and where is she now?

why is that an issue???

it could be because the original poster's mother was connected to a company in say, New York. Let's say WECare approached that company offering health insurance for less. the company would be ensuring that WECare is widely accepted in New York. So if you stay there, chances are you won't have problems. But for some people, they move out of state, or retire in Florida. And it just so happens that WECare is unheard of in Florida...

This might change under Obama, but I know that most people can't wait until he deals with other issues after his inauguration. He is pushing for all medical records to be digitized to cut down on the paperwork, make filing claims streamlined, which should not only bring down health care costs, but make it easier for doctors to provide services to Medicare and Medicaid recipients.

You'd think Medicare would publish a list of providers!

They might once things get changed!

Why would they not accept it? I would think that any payments made by Medicare would be more reliable than a payment made by a private insurer.

Medicare doesn't pay well and has not kept up with healthcare costs for some time now. Our legislators have cut down on what is covered and are increasingly cutting down every year. Hopefully, this will change. The reason that some doctors stopped taking Medicare patients is that they felt they could no longer take care of their Medicare patients adequately on what Medicare paid and they didn't want to settle for the decreased pay schedule.

Sad as it is you really can't blame the doctor's who are just trying to make sure they get paid for their work. Medicare appears to be just as shady if not more so than regular insurance providers. Hopefully Obama's legislation will fix some of this mess.