Several local doctors with small, private practices have mixed feelings about the Affordable Health Care Act, but most agree it will cause many family doctors to consolidate or leave the field.

Practices like mine wont survive, said Dr. Dave Webster, who has operated the Webster Family Practice Clinic in Killeen since 1999.

Clinics not prepared for the Affordable Health Care Act and even some that are will find themselves consolidating, merging or being bought out, said Chris Strickland, the office coordinator for Lampasas and Copperas Cove Family Medicine Clinics.

While ensuring staff at the Lampasas and Cove clinics are well trained on the Affordable Health Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, and not going anywhere, most smaller practices are going to feel a financial burden to keep up with regulations required by the federal government.

The Affordable Health Care Act requires stricter guidelines on documenting and reporting how doctors do their jobs, Dr. Karen Harrison said.

She runs Harrison and Harrison Internal Medicine in Copperas Cove with her husband, Dr. Raymond Harrison. They have been preparing for Obamacare, which opened for enrollment Oct. 1. Coverage starts Jan. 1.

You are going to have to report these numbers and you are going to take some time away from patient care so you will have time to do that, or hire someone to do that for you, Harrison said. The mergers will kind of help, because you have a system then to help accomplish whatever we are asked to do.

Some clinics wont be able to take patients with the government insurance because they will not be able to offset lost revenue as people start to find the loopholes in the Affordable Health Care Act, Strickland said.

(Small clinics) dont have the negotiation power to get good prices from that plan, he said.

Power of merging

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Health care law creates challenges for local doctors