Health insurance exchanges are in their infancy, but they're making a big impact on some specialties. What about orthopedics?
Here are six statistics from orthopedic surgeons about health insurance exchange participation and how the exchanges could impact the specialty in the future based on statistics from the Medscape Orthopedist Compensation Report 2015:
1. 48 percent of orthopedic surgeons are unsure whether they'll participate in health insurance exchanges this year; 51 percent of primary care physicians said the same.
2. 30 percent of orthopedic surgeons don't plan on participating in the exchanges this year. This is up from 24 percent last year.
3. 24 percent of orthopedic surgeons do plan on participating this year; 24 percent of the primary care physicians said the same. This is the same percentage of orthopedic surgeons as last year.
4. 40 percent of orthopedic surgeons say the health insurance exchanges won't impact their income; 63 percent of the primary care physicians said the same.
5. 55 percent of orthopedic surgeons think the exchanges will decrease their income.
6. Only 5 percent of orthopedic surgeons think the exchanges could increase their income; 10 percent of primary care physicians said the same.