Late last week, President Obama signed HR 4851, the
Continuing Extension Act of 2010.
Once again, Congress has enacted merely a temporary patch to maintain
physician payments at the March 31st level until the end of May. The
law is retroactive to April 1, 2010.
Claims for dates of service April 1 and later, previously
held by Medicare contractors, are now released for processing and
payment. It is unlikely that many
claims for dates of service April 1 to April 15 were paid reflecting the 21.3%
cut. Should this occur, CMS has
indicated that it will automatically reprocess any such claim without
additional action required by physicians.
The 21.3% physician payment cut is now scheduled to go into effect June
1, 2010. ACRO and the AMA continue to work with congressional leadership to
determine an appropriate long term solution to the sustainable growth rate
formula.
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