To ‘Keep The Lights On,’ Doctors And Hospitals Ask For Advance Medicare Payments

(By Phil Galewitz for Kaiser Health News)

Darrin Menard, a family physician in Lafayette, Louisiana, has spent the past month easing patients’ anxieties about the coronavirus that has killed 10 people in his parish so far.

But Menard has his own fears: How will his medical practice survive the pandemic?

His office typically sees 70 patients a day, but now it handles half that amount and many of those appointments are done over the phone or computer. He said revenue in the practice has dropped by 40% — which makes it challenging to pay a mortgage, staff salaries, malpractice insurance, utilities, electronic health records costs and other expenses. Continue reading article here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Notice: The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link’s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.