It's official: Doctors face another year of pay cuts from Medicare in 2025 under a rule finalized by the Biden administration, unless Congress steps in again to avert the decrease.

Federal lawmakers are rushing to soften the blow of Medicare’s 2025 effective pay cut for doctors in 2025, introducing the Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act that could limit the cut. But they have little time to act.

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.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is moving forward with a 2.9% cut to physician payments in 2025 despite protest from major industry groups.

Today, it can take weeks to see a doctor, and when patients do get in, appointments last about 15 minutes. The reason is simple. America is facing a shortage of doctors.

As a direct result of AMA advocacy, a new bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. House that would give physicians a positive Medicare payment update for next year.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the House would stop Medicare payment cuts from taking effect in January and give physicians a pay increase.

Following AMA advocacy in leading the charge to reform the Medicare payment system, a bipartisan group in the U.S. House of Representatives has introduced a bill that would provide a 4.7% payment update in 2025.

Lawmakers and numerous health and physician organizations are supporting the Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act that would increase, not cut, Medicare reimbursement for doctors in 2025.