Physician burnout has been increasing for sometime. Paperwork, regulations, liability are ridiculous. More patients for same amount of pay. This pandemic is really gonna hurt the psyche of our heroes on the front lines. Prayers and thanks for those health care providers doing their jobs on the front lines.

HillcountryAg97 said:

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Not sure exactly how this would have an effect on providers getting paid by insurance companies. Patients are still subscribers for insurance and those premiums have not been reduced.

However, payouts from insurance companies to providers has been reduced in terms of fewer elective cases, and scroll down to see how it is affecting primary care and pediatrics.

I'm also down 50-60% in preventative and acute office visits and insurance is now able to hold the money they would have paid for high volume elective cases like colonoscopies and minor elective cases like cataract repair.

If anyone is getting ahead now, it's the insurance companies. They may have their own correction once the critical care claims roll in but cutting payments to providers does not exactly inspire me right now.

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You raise a great point 97.

Is the 80% payout rule still in effect from the ACA? I remember getting a "refund" check years ago because the insurer did not have an 80/20 loss ratio.

Of course, there are likely going to be tons of ICU bills coming in. But I wonder if those will exceed the normal claims insurers would be paying out?

I work for Intermountain Healthcare. They had compensation meetings with all docs this past Friday to announce possible pay cuts. I'm sure the Salt Lake Tribune article was the result of a disgruntled doc calling the paper. The article is accurate. The execs continue to work and and come up with ways to be profitable (by cutting expenses) and thus feel justified to collect their salaries. Those of us not generating as much income for the system have been told to expect a pay cut. My clinic is considered essential so still working seeing very high risk patients (elderly with multiple comorbidities). Trying to do more phone visits and video visits but some things require hands on care. So far very few cases here but the LDS church is bringing home all of their missionaries and telling them to self quarantine. I expect a spike in covid cases in the next two weeks.

Thanks for the update, Legett. Are you staying busy? I know that Intermountain cancelled clinical rotations for Med Lab students and I also perused posts from IM docs on the KSL story who state that they are staying busy although elective procedures have been cancelled.

Probably at 75% of normal. We are trying to get home health to see more of these at risk patients with some telehealth oversight .

Quote:

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tell them to go to NY.

I never understand why employees dont think they have the power to go work elsewhere.

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Is this a real post?

ttuhscaggie said:

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My practice has negotiated reduced premiums to coincide with reductions in workers hours/pay. I'm not entirely sure if that would be made up on the back end or not, but at a minimum insurance companies should not be collecting premiums at the same levels as long as elective procedures are banned.

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My insurance company is instituting grace periods for paying premiums. Medical spend right now is down from usual levels, and we still have a healthy reserve for claims payments on top of that. (That's what reserves are for, of course.) Later in the year, the ratios will probably flip the other way. Then claims expenses will outstrip premiums. So check back in 6 months.