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Mayo Clinic Turns Away Medicare, Medicaid Patients

Hospital praised for efficiency treats increasingly wealthy population

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 13, 2009 7:44 AM CDT

(Newser) – The Mayo Clinic, which has gotten plaudits from the White House for its low spending on Medicare and Medicaid patients, is turning some of those patients away. The clinic will stop accepting Medicaid patients from Nebraska or Montana at its main Rochester, Minnesota, campus, and will no longer offer primary care to Medicare patients at its Florida facility, it announced last week. Mayo calls the moves “business decisions” in response to government underpayments.

Mayo’s been lobbying Congress for preferential treatment for hospitals like it that spend less on Medicare, but the moves fuel critics who say that the its numbers look good because it treats fewer poor patients. Even before this move, the Minnesota facility treated substantially fewer Medicaid patients than comparable facilities—5% compared to 29% at Rochester’s other hospital. These moves, skeptics say, will make its client base wealthier still.

President Barack Obama gestures as he praises the Mayo Clinic of Minnesota as he addressed a health care reform rally, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, at Target Center in Minneapolis.
President Barack Obama gestures as he praises the Mayo Clinic of Minnesota as he addressed a health care reform rally, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, at Target Center in Minneapolis.   (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 39 comments
jimw428
Oct 16, 2009 3:51 AM CDT
Sounds like Cuba to me.
So_Cal_Larry
Oct 14, 2009 10:45 AM CDT
Something went seriously wrong in this country a long time ago. It has to do with 'who pays' and 'how much'. In rural KY, many private hospitals and physicians do not accept Medicaid or even SCHIP for children. Why? Because payments take much too long, and are too little to cover costs. It's not good business to provide a product or service which costs $1,000, then be paid only $750. That can't go on forever. Therein lies Mayo's quandry. Mayo is a business, and must cover costs or go bankrupt. Just like General Motors.
Fondue
Oct 14, 2009 10:35 AM CDT
It doesn't have to. One of the many benefits of living in a federal constitutional republic.

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