WASHINGTON — The doctor will see Congress now.
An Upper East Side ophthalmologist whose ObamaCare woes were spotlighted in The Post has been called to testify before a congressional committee Thursday.
“It shows Washington is listening,” Dr. Patricia McLaughlin said as she prepared for her trek to the halls of power on Capitol Hill.
“All of this thanks to your New York Post article.”
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is probing the ill effects of the health-care law, invited McLaughlin to testify about how she got hit by an ObamaCare “double whammy.”
First, the eye doctor was notified that she was losing the group health plan that covered her four-person office.
Then, she was dropped from the Empire BlueCross BlueShield network, so patients using that insurance plan would have to go elsewhere or pay out of pocket.
McLaughlin said she expects to lose 20 to 25 percent of her patients.
The letter from Empire didn’t specify why McLaughlin was being shut out even while she is listed as a preferred provider under other plans.
The insurance company wouldn’t comment.
Industry insiders say insurers are under pressure to offer cheaper rates for ObamaCare plans and are narrowing their networks of doctors to cut costs.
“I have a double-whammy: I lost my insurance; now my medical practice is going to be losing patients,” McLaughlin told The Post in a story published last month.
The article caught the eye of the Oversight Committee.
“Committee staff reached out to her by phone, and found her to be incredibly concerned, first and foremost, about her patients’ well being,” said committee spokeswoman Caitlin Carroll.
“She shared compelling stories of patients who had lost their coverage or their doctors and had no idea what they were going to do,” she added.
“We invited Dr. McLaughlin to testify and share her firsthand, nonpartisan experience with the committee to better understand the impact ObamaCare is having on doctors and patients.”
McLaughlin said last month she worries about some of her patients for whom “losing their doctor will be a horrific loss.”
“There are patients who are attached to me,” she said. “Our hearts are somewhat broken. The doctor’s major concern is the well-being of the patient, access to care for the patient. We know more than the public. To me, the network is everything.”
In announcing the hearing, the committee promised that it will “examine the truth about ‘If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.’ ”
McLaughlin will appear before the committee on a panel with two other doctors, Dr. Jeffrey English, a neurologist at the Multiple Sclerosis Center of Atlanta, and Dr. Eric Novack, an orthopedic surgeon in Arizona.
The committee also will hear testimony from health policy experts from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Heritage Foundation and Georgetown University.