(CNNMoney.com) -- Medicare has become a scary word to the doctors at the largest private group practice in Kansas City, Mo.It's so scary that most physicians at Kansas City Internal Medicine, with 65% of its nearly 70,000 active patients age 65 or older, have stopped accepting walk-in Medicare enrollees, said Dr. David Wilt, an internist at the group.
Wilt and his colleagues say they are shunning the area's growing senior population because they believe Medicare doesn't reimburse physicians enough to cover the cost of care.
"And if Medicare further cuts its reimbursement rates, then we'll be functioning at a loss," said Wilt.
Wilt -- and doctors with lots of senior patients -- are especially troubled by a 21% cut in Medicare payments to physicians scheduled to take place in 2010. Last week, the Senate voted against stopping that cut, and more annual cuts over the next decade, from taking place.
"If the [21%] cut happens, that cut in our payments will exceed our profits. The only option to us to stay in business will be to fire employees," Wilt said.
Physicians say a boycott against Medicare has already begun because they are tired of dealing with the yearly threat of a payment cut.
Dr. John Hagan, a Kansas City-area ophthalmologist, offers a unique perspective. "I can speak to both sides of this," he said.
As many as 75% of patients at his group practice are Medicare beneficiaries who are treated for problems such as glaucoma or undergo cataract surgery. And if payment rates are cut 21%, after already being reduced to about half the going $1,200 rate for cataract surgery and care in Missouri, Hagan said he won't be able to see more Medicare patients because he won't be able to cover his expenses.
But Hagan himself became Medicare-eligible this month -- and he's nervous. "If I accept Medicare for myself and my wife, I'm fearful I won't be able to stay with my cardiologist and my wife won't be able to stay with her physicians," he said.
