NJ Plans To Expand Medicaid, But Most Doctors Won't Take New Patients

Reimbursement rates suck

eginning in January, the Affordable Care Act is expected to open the door to 300,000 low-income New Jerseyans to get health coverage through Medicaid, but a recent survey found the majority of Garden State doctors won't be willing to treat them.

Fifty-four percent of primary care doctors and 56.5 percent of specialists in New Jersey said they did not plan to accept any new Medicaid patients in the coming year — more than any other state, according to a July report in the monthly publication Health Affairs.

The report — based on a survey of 8,158 physicians in 2011 and 2012 — said "access to office-based physicians is important in helping Medicaid patients avoid relying on" costly hospital emergency rooms for their care.