Medicare beneficiary access to primary care physicians--better in rural, but still worrisome

Primary care is the foundation of the rural U.S. health care system. Thus, the willingness of rural primary care physicians to accept new Medicare patients is critically important to the Medicare program and to rural America's elderly. But universally consistent access to primary care physicians for Medicare beneficiaries may be in jeopardy. The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) reports that the percentage of family physicians accepting new Medicare patients declined from 84% in 2000 to 73% in 2008. Urban family physicians accepted new Medicare patients at a lower rate (70%) than did rural family physicians (83%). In this policy brief, we use results from a large national physician survey to assess U.S. primary care physician and general surgeon willingness to accept Medicare patients. We also assess physician-reported reasons for not accepting Medicare patients.