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ACRO ALERT
SGR Update, as of March 29, 2010
published 3/30/2010

Last week, Congress failed to extend the current Medicare physician payment rates.  In a standoff similar to last month's stalemate in which a single Senator, using arcane Senate procedural rules brought a halt to the entire process, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) objected to the bill.  He noted that the bill should not be considered emergency spending exempt from budgetary offsets.  Congress has adjourned for its spring recess and will not reconsider this issue any time before mid-April.

 
Therefore, because of Congressional inaction, the 21% fee schedule reduction is currently scheduled to go into effect on April 1, 2010.  

AMA and ACRO have consistently objected to this repeated gamesmanship.  As AMA has stated "...this brinksmanship is wreaking havoc with physician practices, and is causing both physicians and patients to lose confidence in the stability of the Medicare program.  It illustrates in stark terms why medicine can no longer support short-term "fixes" to a formula that we knew would not work at the time Congress created it."
Physicians interested in expressing their dissatisfaction may locate and contact their Representatives and Senators during their spring break. Try using AMA's Grassroots Hotline: 1.800.833.6354, as one option to contact your legislators.

Key talking points you may choose to make include:

�       45 million Americans are covered by Medicare and physicians cannot effectively run a practice in an environment with such extreme financial uncertainty. 

�       Physicians informed Congress when it created the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula that it would not work, and this point has been proven every year for nearly a decade.

�       Congress must stop playing games with physicians and patients and do what they know must be done:  Repeal the SGR formula once and for all.


CMS believes that Congress, when it returns from its spring break, will work to avert the negative update.  As a result, CMS has instructed its contractors to hold physician services claims for the first 10 business days of April.  This hold will only affect claims with dates of service April 1, 2010, and forward.