The AMA Wire reports the following action on the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: *3-month Medicare payment update approved for Jan. 1 *Congress has adopted a 0.5 percent update to Medicare payments for three months, following a bipartisan vote of 64 to 36 in the U.S. Senate Wednesday afternoon. *The president is expected to sign … Continue Reading
I recently posted the SGR White Paper published jointly by the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. Earlier this week, both committees endorsed legislation enacting those concepts. The section by section summary of the SGR Repeal and Medicare Beneficiary Access Improvement Act of 2013 is attached. Unfortunately, both the House and … Continue Reading
The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have jointly issued a White Paper proposing the repeal of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate Formula, entitled “SGR Repeal and Medicare Physician Payment Reform”. The SGR white paper acknowledges that the Sustainable Growth Rate formula is “fundamentally broken” and that application of the SGR … Continue Reading
The 2012 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule is out! It contains a proposed Medicare Conversation Factor of $23.9635. This is a 29.5% DECREASE, mandated by the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula. Med Law Blog will be presenting analysis of key additional provisions in the coming weeks.… Continue Reading
The Social Security Act requires CMS to provide annual estimates to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) for both the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Conversion Factor (SCF) and the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). According to the letter just released by Jonathan Blum, Deputy Administrator and Director for CMS, the 2012 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Conversion Factor … Continue Reading
The stalled healthcare reform initiative leaves the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule problem of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) imposed 21.5% reduction as a stand alone separate issue. The physician fee schedule decrease was postponed for 2 months by an Obama addition to a defense approriation bill, with the expectation that a long term solution would … Continue Reading
