House Rejects Measure to Temporarily Block Medicare Pay Cut - Physicians face 24.7% Payment Reduction

(12/20/2011 from AAFP News Now)  --  The U.S. House of Representatives today rejected a Senate-approved bill that would have temporarily blocked an impending Medicare payment cut. As a result, physicians now are facing a 27.4 percent Medicare payment reduction that is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1. "The AAFP is outraged that Congress failed to prevent the 27.4 percent Medicare physician pay cut mandated by current law," said AAFP President Glen Stream, M.D., M.B.I., of Spokane, Wash., in a prepared statement. "That failure has presented (Congress') elderly and disabled constituents a bitter holiday gift -- uncertainty about whether their physicians will be able to provide the services they need." More