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WASHINGTON — Limiting the fees that Medicare pays to doctors has apparently not scared them off taking Medicare patients, and most people trying to find medical care under the program have been able to, says a government report released Friday.

Some groups have predicted that doctors will drop out of the Medicare program if they are not compensated enough for their time. But the Government Accountability Office found no evidence people had more trouble finding doctors.

"Nationwide, no more than about 7 percent of beneficiaries reported a major access difficulty," the GAO report says.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, used records and surveys compiled by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which administers the state-federal health insurance plans for the elderly, poor and disabled.

"Congress, policy analysts and groups representing physicians have periodically raised concerns that Medicare's efforts to control spending on physician services by limiting annual updates to physician fees could have an adverse impact on beneficiaries' access to physician services," according to the report.

"These concerns were heightened in 2002 when Medicare's formula for setting physician fees required a 5.4 percent reduction in fees to help moderate rapid spending increases."

But doctors evidently were not discouraged from providing care, investigators found.

"Only a small fraction — less than 4 percent — of physicians responded that they did not accept any new Medicare patients," the report said.

From 2000 to 2005, more people sought care under Medicare and they got more services, the report found.