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The way Medicare for these high-reimbursement specialties (Ophthalmology, Radiation Oncology, and Medical Oncology) is that the Doctor's practice will pre-purch
by riahi 13y ago
The way Medicare for these high-reimbursement specialties (Ophthalmology, Radiation Oncology, and Medical Oncology) is that the Doctor's practice will pre-purchase the medications/injections/treatments before administering to patients and then Medicare will reimburse the practice. These doctors are certainly not taking home anywhere near a fraction of that number.
See: http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-10-00360.pdf http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-10-00360.pdf
The executive summary discusses how two injections used for treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration are purchased.
- refurb 13y agoThat's called "buy and bill" and that is paid separately from the physician fees discussed in the article. If you did include the cost of drugs, you'd be correct that physician salary is only a small fraction of the cost of treating a patient. Since some cancer drugs cost over $10,000/month, some clinics spend 90%+ of their revenue just on drugs.
- riahi 13y agoI'm pretty sure they are including buy-and-bill numbers here. The #1 doctor, Salomon Melgen, is a retinologist who is currently being investigated by CMS for suspected Medicare fraud. The numbers in this article match the numbers from the CMS data dump. See http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/14/Medical-Expert-on-Alleged-Practices-of-Melgen-It-Doesn-t-Seem-Possible-You-Could-Get-4-Doses-Out-of-a-Single-Vial http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/14/Medical-E...
- refurb 13y agoTurns out you were correct! I wouldn't have imagined that Lucentis would have such a impact on the numbers.