Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services slashed government reimbursements to physicians for the fifth year in a row, placing a severe financial burden on seniors and their doctors that will take effect in January – unless Congress intervenes first.
Congress must act now to stop the proposed 2025 physician payment cut and add an inflation-based update to maintain patient access to Medicare.
Manufactured out of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the goal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) was to limit the growth in Medicare spending to keep it in line with inflation. Under the SGR, if overall physician payment costs exceeded target expenditures, a cut to Medicare physician payment was triggered.
Rural communities face growing challenges in accessing health care, and Medicare’s looming physician payment cuts threaten to exacerbate this crisis.
Physicians are facing another Medicare payment cut, even though costs of running a practice and purchasing medical equipment have gone up. This reoccurs year-after-year, contributing to a 29 percent payment decrease since 2001.
Now that the dust has settled from the election, it’s time for Washington to look past all the politics and advance bipartisan reforms that help expand Americans’ access to quality care.
For a third straight year, MedPAC stressed that physician payment rate updates should be based on an inflation-based index for Medicare.
Millions of Americans may soon lose access to their doctors — unless Congress prevents a pay cut that could put many of them out of business.
At Sanford Health’s rural health care summit, the AMA’s president tells why Congress needs to pass proposed Medicare payment and prior authorization reforms.
Medicare now provides insurance for one in five Americans, and the number of beneficiaries is on track to continue growing. Yet the program that pays physicians remains chronically underfunded and hamstrung by flawed policy.
Leaders in the medical community are calling on Sen. Mitch McConnell to take immediate action to protect the health care of Kentucky’s Medicare beneficiaries by supporting H.R. 10073, the “Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act.” This measure is crucial to prevent a looming threat to patient access and physician care in 2025.
Right now, Medicare reimbursement rates barely cover the actual costs of care. If these proposed cuts go through, it’ll only make things harder for providers, and some may have no choice but to stop accepting Medicare patients altogether.
We’re dedicated to raising awareness of Medicare physician payment system problems so that we can work towards solutions that protect physician practices and patients’ access to care. It’s vital that patients and physicians use their voices to advocate for change.
Click the button below to learn about the various ways to get involved in the fight to Fix Medicare Now.