Medicare Beneficiary Access to Primary Care Physicians -- Better in Rural, but Still Worrisome

Primary care is the foundation of the rural U.S. healthcare system. Thus, the willingness of rural primary care physicians to accept new Medicare patients is critically important to the Medicare program and to rural America's elderly. In this policy brief, results from a large national physician survey are used to assess U.S. primary care physician and general surgeon willingness to accept Medicare patients and physician-reported reasons for not accepting Medicare patients.