Nearly half of doctors' offices are now consolidated within hospital systems, a trend contributing to higher costs and fewer services, especially in rural areas. 

A new report from the Government Accountability Office shows the number of independent physician offices which are part of hospital systems has increased dramatically since 2012. 

Dr. Saravanan Kasturi, medical director of Northwest Endovascular Surgery in Richland, said private practices like his are struggling in part because Medicare reimbursements have not kept up with the cost of providing services, resulting in a loss of many procedures. 

“We are just averaging things and cutting things and figuring out how to make things work, or cutting staff and taking less salary,” Kasturi explained. “There are a few months I had to go without pay to make these things work.” 

Kasturi added when office-based procedures become financially unsustainable, patients have to go to hospitals for care, where they face longer wait times and higher bills. The future, however, holds some potential relief: Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors' offices could rise in January. 

Jason McKitrick, executive director of the Office-Based Facility Association, explained while Medicare reimbursement rates for private practices have been falling, rates for hospitals – for the same procedures – have increased, bumping up costs for patients. He argued the proposed rule would increase payment rates for all office-based providers, including primary care and proceduralists. 

“Anybody that is providing services in the office-based setting, their rates are increasing for the first time in the last six years,” McKitrick pointed out. “They’re still not back to where even they were in 2021, but they’ve gone in an ‘up’ trend.” 

McKitrick added the final rules for payment rates are supposed to be released Nov. 1, but the government shutdown might cause a delay. If the rule becomes permanent, it would go into effect Jan. 1. 

This story was originally published by Washington News Service, a bureau of Public News Service, a national newswire with a local focus with state-level, public interest news.