Private insurance acceptance declines more than Medicare

Despite concerns about Medicare payments, a new study shows that the acceptance rate for patients with private insurance actually fell more than among those with Medicare in recent years.

The study, which appeared in June in Archives of Internal Medicine, found that acceptance of patients with private insurance dropped from 93.3% in 2005 to 87.8% in 2008, whereas acceptance of patients with Medicare declined from 95.5% to 92.9% during that time.

"Given the medical profession's widely reported dissatisfaction with Medicare, we expected to find evidence that Medicare patients were being turned away," says lead author Tara Bishop, MD, assistant professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College.