“We’re gonna see a cut in our Medicare reimbursement. It keeps climbing every year, and this really would be a disaster,” Birge said.

ACCESS TO CARE

Some Medicare physicians have threatened to quit the program if there’s no repeal of SGR.

But Birge said that issue is overblown. The reason doctors stop accepting Medicare, he said, is because they stop accepting insurance altogether.

Each insurance provider has a different set of rules for paperwork, and in an area like St. Louis with several providers, “you need an army of accountants and secretaries to fill out all these forms, and it’s extremely costly,” he said.

Birge pointed to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found 96 percent of Medicare beneficiaries say they have good access to doctors.

But Craft, the medical society president, said that’s not what he’s observed in his organization.

While most doctors won’t leave the Medicare program, many will cap the number of Medicare patients they’re willing to see, he said.

Once the SGR is replaced, though, changes will be gradual.