My Doctor Retired!

[Andrew Hughes]

Called the doctors office yesterday to see my primary care Doc.And they said he retired.Whaaat
My wife and my Doc were the only ones I felt like really cared about all the health c**p I've been going thru.
Last month I had a bilateral hernia surgery and that's not the worst of it.
Feel like I'm floating in the middle of the ocean without a paddle.:(
Anyone ever had this happen to them?

[Mike Henderson]

I worry about it. My doc is just a bit younger than I am so I suspect he's going to retire before I kick off. I ask him about it almost every visit but he just tells me he has no plans to retire.

I hope you find a doc that you can work with well. And try to make sure he or she is a good bit younger than you.

Mike

[Bruce Volden]

Well, retiring is a good thing! I, so far have outlived the only 2 primary MD's I've had!!
There's that.

Bruce

[roger wiegand]

Half a dozen times now. Fortunately the practice is very good with 8-10 docs and the new folks we've been in to see are uniformly excellent.

I've been finding that if you have a real health problem the role of your "primary doctor" is so small as to be close to a meaningless distinction. Instead one sees a string of specialists and it becomes critical to act as your own case manager, coordinating among the players.

[Brett Luna]

I wouldn't know what it's like to have a long term relationship with a doctor. Most of our appointments are on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson where we're assigned to a family practice panel of providers. We're usually seen by a PA. Sometimes they retire but usually, they just move on to a new assignment. I do see an off-base rheumatologist every month, though, and have done so for longer than any on-base provider.

[Jim Becker]

It happens. Doctors retire. Doctors move to different practices. One of the doctors at the practice I use is leaving to get back to more personal care under the MDVIP organization. My PA left the practice a few months ago and moved to another state to join a wholistic medicine practice. The new PA is nice and generally is working out fine for me. Nature of the beast...

[Andrew Hughes]

Thanks guys, I'll try to go with the flow.My road is pretty narrow right now so I guess I taking it hard.Later today I will get to meet his replacement .

[Bruce Page]

My primary doctor switched to a MDVIP practice 3 years ago. I would have had to pay a paltry $1500 retainer each year for his services in addition to the normal insurance co-pays. I couldn't justify the costs so I have been semi floundering trying to find a doctor I feel comfortable with. I'm on my 3rd doctor now.

[James Baker SD]

with poor health since high school (and now on medicare) I have had 3 doctors retire on me and another 4 move out of the area. When looking for replacements, I now try to find someone quite a bit younger than me (but not in first year of practice) to reduce the chance of retirement, but cannot do anything about those that move away.

[Stan Calow]

Most of the independent practices around here are getting bought up by the big health care systems. The primaries are just gatekeepers for and endless parade of interconnected specialists.

[Rich Riddle]

My dad just started up with a "new" doctor. He has retired two and will turn 86 in October. After a thorough checkup the doctor said he had 15 to 20 more years. He might just retire another VA doctor. Pick a young one in good health.

[Jason Roehl]

I worry about it. My doc is just a bit younger than I am so I suspect he's going to retire before I kick off. I ask him about it almost every visit but he just tells me he has no plans to retire.

I hope you find a doc that you can work with well. And try to make sure he or she is a good bit younger than you.

Mike

I wouldn't expect him to give you much warning, for business reasons. If he told all his patients that he was retiring in two years, he'd have a money-losing practice in less than 6 months, more than likely. Everyone would be jumping ship to get openings at another doc, patients and employees alike.

[Mike Null]

My doctor retired 15 years ago but recommended one of his associates whom we accepted. He turned out to be better than the guy who retired. Then about 4 years ago he announced that he was changing to a "boutique" practice and that we would have to pay $300 a month for his services and he would not accept any insurance. I immediately advised him that we could not continue to use him. He then recommended another doctor new to the group. I went with him.

On my first visit I was very impressed and recommended him to my wife who was annoyed with the whole thing. Well, she went to him and came back raving about how he's the best doctor we've had since we've been in St. Louis. He is a Pakistani. He is efficient, responsive, highly competent and demonstrated he has big brass ones after he found out that my urologist had screwed up my latest prostate issue. I was getting nowhere with my complaints but the following Monday after I had seen my new MD I got a call from my urologist. He said he had run into my new doctor at the hospital and they had had a conversation about me. Anyway he asked that I come in immediately to consut with him and one of his partners who specializes in an operation that would resolve the issue I was having as a result of the previous surgery. He left no doubt that my new doctor had reamed him a new one.

[glenn bradley]

Been there. Fortunately the outfit I'm with has a bunch of good docs. Maybe its because I am the child of a doctor but, I shop them just like any other service; they're not gods. I'm payimg for a servie and if I don't like it I go across the street.

It took me three doctors to find the one I had for several years but, when he retired I found his replacement on the first try (just lucky) and have been there ever since. He is probably 10 years younger than me so I should only outlive him by about a decade :rolleyes:. By then I'll need a gerontologist or the like anyway.

[Andrew Hughes]

I saw my new Doc yesterday and he was alright I guess.He spoke kinda fast there wasn't anyone else waiting so I'm thinking that's how he is.
He also was about the same age as me mid 50s.The office looked nice some new art on the walls.Everything was clean.As other mention he's really there to get me to the right specialist.

I still miss my old doc I always felt better before I got to see him. Oh well.....

[Art Mann]

The problem gets much, much worse when you reach 65. Most family physicians where I live will not accept medicare patients and it is illegal for them to just send you a bill instead. I have a friend whose primary care doctor treated him for free after being with him for many, many years because he could not accept Medicare from only a select group of people. Eventually, the government caught up with the doctor and forced him to stop treating my friend at his own expense. He has been searching for several months now and can't find anyone who will treat him. He goes to a Doc-In-A-Box.

[Mike Henderson]

The problem gets much, much worse when you reach 65. Most family physicians where I live will not accept medicare patients and it is illegal for them to just send you a bill instead. I have a friend whose primary care doctor treated him for free after being with him for many, many years because he could not accept Medicare from only a select group of people. Eventually, the government caught up with the doctor and forced him to stop treating my friend at his own expense. He has been searching for several months now and can't find anyone who will treat him. He goes to a Doc-In-A-Box.
I don't believe that's correct. Doctors do not have to accept Medicare - I've been to some that do not. You have to pay them out of your pocket and then YOU can file a claim to Medicare. Medicare will then pay YOU (not the doctor) the standard rate that Medicare pays for a procedure (you may have paid more).

[Edit: I made this sound like you have to pay before you file a claim to Medicare. You do not have to pay first. As long as you went to the doctor and got a paper saying what was done, you can file. Many people don't have the money to pay first so they have to wait until they get the reimbursement from Medicare to be able to pay the doc.]

Doctors who do accept Medicare must accept all Medicare patients who come to their practice - they cannot say that they will take x person over 65 and not y person over 65 - providing they have not closed their practice. A closed practice is one which is not accepting ANY additional new patients because the doctor has all he or she can handle.

Doctors can certainly do pro bono work, including pro bono for those over 65, and no one will object.

Are you sure your friend was not a Medicaid patient? Many doctors will not accept Medicaid patients because the reimbursement is too small.

Mike

[If you go to the Medicare web site they'll probably have an explanation of how Medicare works with doctors who take Medicare and with doctors who do not take Medicare. A doctor is incented to take Medicare because the payment goes directly to him or her. If the doctor does not take Medicare, the payment goes to the patient and then the doctor has to get the patient to pay. And a lot of times, the patient just pockets the money and never pays the doc.]

[Art Mann]

No, doctors are not obliged to take medicare but their policy must be consistent. That is to say they can't accept medicare for some patients and not others. My friend's doctor treated him for free because he felt a certain loyalty to him after decades but didn't want to accept medicare from any patient. The compensation was too low for him to stay in business otherwise. I don't believe you can file a claim directly with Medicare for reimbursement, but even if that is so, the doctor would still have to accept only what Medicare dictates is fair compensation. It isn't legal for a doctor to accept supplemental compensation from a patient, no matter how unfair the medicare policy is. I didn't research the law regarding pro bono treatment on a regular basis but my friend says that is why his doctor of 30 years had to stop treating him and I believe it. He is not prone to lying or exaggeration. It just sounds to me like typical government policy - no good deed goes unpunished.

[Tom Deutsch]

I would recommend anyone to look for a primary care doc who is practicing with a "functional medicine" certification. From what I've been able to tell, these are generally ... general doctors (internal medicine, etc) who have picked up on this increasingly recognized certification. They spend a lot more time looking for the root causes of symptoms, vs treating a diagnosis. Lots of so-called diseases (diabetes, arthritis, MS, fibromyalgia, depression, etc) are just a bunch of symptoms that lump into a diagnosis for which there are drugs marketed. Functional docs don't ignore the diagnosis but they work a lot harder to understand what's going on (blood tests) and and use the body's own chemical and hormonal loops to keep the symptoms at bay. In other words - to produce remission from those chronic conditions a lot of us have probably been sentenced with.

[Mike Henderson]

No, doctors are not obliged to take medicare but their policy must be consistent. That is to say they can't accept medicare for some patients and not others. My friend's doctor treated him for free because he felt a certain loyalty to him after decades but didn't want to accept medicare from any patient. The compensation was too low for him to stay in business otherwise. I don't believe you can file a claim directly with Medicare for reimbursement, but even if that is so, the doctor would still have to accept only what Medicare dictates is fair compensation. It isn't legal for a doctor to accept supplemental compensation from a patient, no matter how unfair the medicare policy is. I didn't research the law regarding pro bono treatment on a regular basis but my friend says that is why his doctor of 30 years had to stop treating him and I believe it. He is not prone to lying or exaggeration. It just sounds to me like typical government policy - no good deed goes unpunished.

I went to the Medicare site and found an explanation here (https://www.medicare.gov/your-medicare-costs/part-a-costs/assignment/costs-and-assignment.html). It's fairly complex. The groups apparently break down into "participating" and "nonparticipating".

A nonparticipating physician may accept the Medicare fee schedule for certain services and not for others. And it appears that they are required to file a claim for you. My memory is that if they are nonparticipating, the payment goes to the patient and not to the doc. There is a limit to what nonparticipating providers can charge you - you are right about that.

If your friend was being treated pro bono, there's no way that anyone would know of it. One possibility is that the provider submitted certain claims and that's how they found out about what he was doing. The other possibility is that the doc wanted to stop treating pro bono and just told your friend he was not permitted to continue.

I'm sure that if he was truly doing the work pro bono no one would object.

Mike