Fewer Miss. Docs Accepting Medicaid Payments

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi State University researchers say fewer than half of Mississippi’s primary care doctors are taking new Medicare patients.

The state has fewer primary care doctors per capita than any other state to begin with.

Social science professor Ronald Cossman says researchers posing as new patients called doctors’ offices, reaching 580 of the 678 individual and group practice offices in Mississippi.

He says only 47 percent of those identified as core primary care doctors agreed to take new patients insured by Medicaid, while 75 percent agreed to take new patients with private insurance.

Cossman tells reporters that he expected a difference, but not one that big.

His study was published last month in the Southern Medical Journal, published by the Southern Medical Association.

The study: http://bit.ly/PbHGT7