Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Payment system discourages medical students from geriatric path.

While the U.S. population is aging rapidly, medical schools are failing to train enough geriatricians and other professionals who specialize in treating older adults to meet future needs.
 
As a result, there will be only one geriatrician for every 7,665 older adults by the year 2030 unless steps are taken to reverse the discipline's decline.

That's the warning of a report released this month by the New York-based American Geriatrics Society. Titled "Caring for Older Americans: The Future of Geriatric Medicine," the study found that while the number of adults 65 and older will double over the next 25 years, a declining number of medical students is choosing to specialize in geriatrics.

The situation is "dire," according to AGS President Dr.David Reuben. "Yet if our society is to meet the health care needs of older persons, we must face these challenges and succeed," he says.

The report blames medical students' disinterest in the field on the relative lack of financial support for geriatric education as well as inadequate reimbursement for basic elements of geriatric medicine such as care coordination and long-term care services.

"It's a kind of primary care that has very limited income potential," observes geriatrician Dr. Bill Thomas, founder of the Eden Alternative long-term care reform initiative and author of "What Are Old People For: How Elders Will Save the World."

"The billing system is set up around a healthy younger adult who can get in and out of a doctor's office fairly quickly. That really does not work for the geriatric system," says Thomas.