Medicare negotiates a MFN clause, so they are - out of the gate - at the lowest rate any clinic ever charges, with no eye towards profitability.
Because it's well known in healthcare economics (or at least finance/administration) I thought the ~7% aggregate number would be widely published and that I'd be able to quickly find a link for you. For reasons I don't understand - it is not - but here is a link that has a chart/graph from Davita that talks about the phenomenon (in micro, not macro):
- http://www.rationalwalk.com/?p=14802
Could you please point us to the source of this information?
It was my understanding, from a news article I read a few years ago, that Medicare evaluates each medical procedure and comes out with a fair price that guarantees fair profit for the provider.
I think it might be that providers cannot charge insane profits to Medicare so they rather avoid dealing with them.