Doctors

My doctors are not preferred providers in any plan. What should I do?

Set up an FSA account for about half the amount you expect to spend on those doctors. Then pick one of the top ranked plans that includes a fee-for-service benefit, use that benefit for whatever it will pay (which will probably be about half), and use the FSA to cover the rest. Or change doctors. Another good option for most is to join a high deductible or consumer driven plan and use the HSA or personal account to pay for out-of-network doctors.

I'd like to know if more and more doctors are declining to participate in Medicare and that this makes them inaccessible to federal annuitants who do select Part B?

There is no major trend in doctors declining to accept Medicare. The vast majority of doctors (research shows somewhere around 95% nationally) do accept Part B. There are pockets of lower participation, particularly in very high income areas, but even in those areas the great majority accept Medicare. More importantly, there is no reason to think that the doctors who do not participate are better than the rest. Indeed, there are top notch doctors who take Medicare Part B but who are not in the network of any private plan, simply as a matter of social obligation.