Recently, Texas has lifted a ban on prohibiting rural hospitals from employing physicians in order to solve the problem of shortages of doctors and health care providers in states such as Texas and California. However, it remains to be seen whether the recent healthcare reform would have some positive impact on the remuneration of physicians who practice in nonmetropolitan areas.<\/p>\n
Many physicians opt out of rural healthcare and start practicing in metropolitan areas because it just does not make any business sense. However, some steps taken by the government may boost the number of doctors in rural America.<\/p>\n
The good news for physicians who choose to provide services in rural parts of Texas and other parts of US is that they would have a say in selecting their medical liability insurance.\u00a0 Another advantage of this law is that it makes more financial sense in being employed rather than starting your own independent practice which is riskier.<\/p>\n
The risk comes from the fact that compared to urban areas there are fewer people in rural regions who are covered by insurance plans which reimburse the doctors appropriately, moreover physicians are more confident of being paid by Medicare and Medicaid in rural areas than private payers.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem faced by rural physicians is the lack of reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. The complex billing procedures, government red tape and longer amount of time taken by doctors to treat the sickest and the newest patients are some of the hurdles. However, this can be solved if the new health-care reform succeeds in increasing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates for certain primary care doctors\u2019 services.<\/p>\n
The recent health care reform by President Obama would mean that many people from the rural areas who were not covered under insurance would now get covered. This would mean that although doctors and hospitals would be busy it could bring in more revenue and lesser restrictions for doctors as far as liability insurance is concerned.<\/p>\n
The combination of health care reform and the incentives provided to rural health care in the Federal budget would mean more billing, coding as well as denial management. Although the number of medical billers and coders are set to increase by about 20% in the coming years according to some sources, it does not completely guarantee quality and accuracy in medical billing and coding.<\/p>\n