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Congress has headed off the planned 10.1-percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians scheduled for Jan. 1 and replaced it with a wholly-inadequate 0.5-percent fee increase for six months, which will result in the continued slow-bleeding of physicians as government payments fail to keep pace with increasing practice costs. Lawmakers also extended expiring rural physician payment provisions, the Medicare physician quality reporting initiative, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program through March 31, 2009.
Texas Medical Association President William W. Hinchey, MD, is less than pleased with the last minute action, saying that all Congress did was "kick the can a little farther down the road."
"It was quite frustrating to field calls from legislative assistants in some of the members' offices," he said in a news release after Congress' last-minute vote. "Each time I listened patiently to their explanations and politely said, 'If you are waiting for me to say thanks, we might as well end the conversation.'"
Dr. Hinchey said physicians "need to provide long-term, continuous care for their Medicare patients — senior citizens who suffer with complicated health issues."
And Congress, he said, "needs to use the same treatment plan when addressing Medicare funding. For six years, physicians have dealt with this flawed payment system which has left physicians with no measurable update and has harmed their ability to deal with rising practice costs and to appropriately care for their patients. Congress needs to be held accountable to the citizens who were promised quality health care through the Medicare program. Congress needs to come with up with a permanent, long-term solution, rather than the proposed six-month Band-Aid. Neither our patients nor their physicians can live with this uncertainty.
"Although the last minute fix forestalls the arbitrary cut imposed on physician practices, there is no acceptable solution other than a permanent fix to the Sustainable Growth Rate funding formula. Anything less than a permanent solution amounts to the government abandoning its commitment to senior citizens. We will hold the government accountable and start working on this serious problem on Jan. 2, 2008," he said.
"Until this issue is addressed once and for all for the benefit of our Medicare patients, TMA is calling on Congress to provide no increases to hospitals, nursing homes, Medicare HMOs or any other Medicare provider in 2008."
At press time, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was expected to give physicians another 45 days to change their Medicare participation status for 2008.
You have three participation options for 2008. The American Medical Association has posted Medicare Participation Options for Physicians on its Web site to help you decide. Neither TMA nor AMA endorses any of the three; we just want you to have the information.
See the Jan. 1, 2008, issue of Action for more details on what Congress did and what may come next.
Published in Dec. 19, 2007, special issue of Action.
Last Published: 12/27/2007 Print this page
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