Another Deadline Passes for Doc Fix
BY LAUREN UZDIENSKI, JUNE 4, 2010
Congress was due to act on the looming 21% cut to physician Medicare pay by June 1, when the prior patch expired, but the ongoing Memorial Day recess means legislators won't vote on a bill until at least Monday, June 7th. CMS says they won't process payments for 10 business days, giving the Senate a chance to reconvene and vote on another patch. Rinse, repeat.
For its part, the House voted last week to pass a 19-month patch that would raise physician pay by 2.2% for the remainder of 2010 and 1% in 2011.
The AMA released a statement lambasting Senators for being "more interested in heading home for the holiday than in preventing a Medicare meltdown for seniors" and pleading with Congress to stop passing patches and instead revamp the CMS pay system. Currently, physician pay is supposed to be set to the SGR, a measure designed to keep reimbursement rates from outpacing overall economic growth. Congress has repeatedly passed patches to avoid reconciling pay rates to the SGR, and those cuts have compounded to produce the 21% reduction doctors face today. The WSJ's Health Blog reports that according to the CBO, just maintaining current pay rates would cost $276 billion over a decade.
