Doctors will face a 4.5 percent reduction in their Medicare payments next year unless congressional negotiators approve a provision to stem the scheduled fee cuts.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) announced a final rule that includes the 4.5 percent cut in physician reimbursement, effective January 1, 2004. The scheduled cut is slightly larger than the negative 4.2 percent update that the government forecast earlier this year.
A House-Senate conference committee is considering a provision in the House-passed Medicare bill that would replace projected cuts in 2004 and 2005 with a minimum 1.5 percent increase each year while Congress reconsiders the physician payment structure.
Physicians were hit with a 5.4 percent payment cut in 2002 but were spared a scheduled 4.4 percent cut in 2003 when President Bush signed an omnibus appropriations bill last February that included a 1.6 percent increase instead.
A dramatic rise in the number of services provided by physicians in 2002 triggered the cut, CMS says. Service volume is one factor in the complicated physician fee formula designed to curb growth on physician spending. The controversial sustainable growth rate, or SGR, used in the formula is based on annual calculations involving medical inflation, projected growth in the domestic economy, the number of beneficiaries in traditional Medicare and changes in law or regulation.
The AMC/NOMA wrote to federal legislators arguing that the formula is flawed because instead of linking payment directly to medical inflation and practice costs, it ties fee updates to the health of the overall economy. The rule adds a 4.5 percent cut in Medicare physician payments on top of a 5.4 percent cut in 2002. AMC/NOMA and the AMA will continue to work to be sure Congress acts to halt the Medicare cut before it goes into effect on January 1, 2004.
With only weeks remaining before Congress adjourns, AMC/NOMA urges physicians to contact their representatives and senators IMMEDIATELY and tell them to pass legislation to stop the cut. Tell them America's seniors, and the physicians who care for them, deserve better.
To contact your senators and representatives, go to the AMC/NOMA website at www.amcnoma.org and visit the “legislation” link in the tool bar. The AMC/NOMA will continue to argue against the payment cut.