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.
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