Karin Woofter traveled from her home in Anchorage to Tampa, Fla., a few years ago, in 2020. She stayed with her sister there, but the point of Woofter’s visit wasn’t to see family. She was there to see a primary care doctor.
“I've heard that a lot of people here in Anchorage who need a specialist of some kind, will fly to Seattle, but for me, it was easier to go back home to Florida,” Woofter said.
She’d moved from Florida to Anchorage for new love around age 65, when she became eligible for the federal Medicare program. But when she was trying to find a primary care doctor, everywhere she called in Anchorage said they weren’t taking new Medicare patients.
“You feel just sort of like forgotten and nobody likes to feel forgotten or ignored or let down,” Woofter said. “And that's me talking in good health. I just really feel for those folks on Medicare who perhaps have ongoing issues that they need doctors care. God bless them. I don't know what they do.”
Woofter isn’t the only person in Alaska on Medicare struggling to find the care they need. Some providers are worried about the lack of access for Medicare patients and say it’s only likely to get worse as Alaska’s population ages.
Jeanne Larson, who coordinates the Medicare information offices for the state’s Department of Health, said access to Medicare providers throughout the state can be challenging. In Anchorage, she said, people have trouble finding primary care doctors in private practice.
“Outside of Anchorage, we hear more about people having access to specialists,” Larson said. “And with specialists, it's because there may not be that particular specialty in their smaller community, or it's a traveling specialist that may come from Seattle to that area on certain occasions.”
She said it’s a common problem for Medicare recipients in rural areas around the country, but in Alaska, communities off the road system face an additional barrier.
And there’s something else exacerbating the problem in Alaska: reimbursement rates for Medicare are below what providers receive caring for people with private insurance or even Medicaid, the program serving low-income Americans. Providers say reimbursement rates aren’t enough to cover their costs and many won’t take Medicare patients for that reason, or they limit the number of Medicare patients they accept at one time. There are no legal requirements that an office take Medicare at all. And all of that leaves Medicare patients, who are part of an expanding older population in the state, left to scramble to find providers who will see them.
Larson said some people, like Woofter, travel long distances for care.
“If people also have the financial means to go outside of Alaska to receive care, Medicare Part A and B cover you anywhere in the United States and its territories,” Larson said.
But the federal program doesn’t pay for any travel, which is different from Medicaid. Patients on Medicare who can’t afford to travel to a provider have limited options. They can wait, or hope a provider comes to their area, or simply go without the care they need.
For primary care, Larson said, she directs people to bigger clinics like Providence Alaska or the Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center.
Lisa Aquino, CEO of Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center, said they’re part of a program that gets reimbursed at slightly higher rates for Medicare.
“What we're reimbursed with in terms of Medicare is not as much as we receive for Medicaid or private insurance,” Aquino said. “It doesn't cover its costs either, but we as a nonprofit are going to assure that everybody who needs service is going to get that service.”
She said 27% of the center’s patients in 2024 were on Medicare. It’s working for now, but she worries about what will happen as the population of older residents in the states grows, and as some specialists reach retirement age.
“Potentially, we're just at the beginning of a time when it's going to be maybe even harder to find specialists, depending on the field,” Aquino said.
According to a representative of the center, it’s hardest now to refer their Medicare patients to rheumatologists and endocrinologists. Patients often have to wait for up to a year to see those specialists.
In Anchorage, Woofter eventually found a local primary care physician. She has bounced around between providers as they retire or move away. But she said if she needs to, she’s open to flying back to Florida again for care in the future.
