The Medicare primary care physician incentive program is set to expire next year, causing primary care physicians to lose a 10 percent bonus for caring for Medicare patients, according to Albuquerque Journal.
Here are five takeaways:
1. The program was created in 2011 to address Medicare reimbursement disparities between primary care physicians and specialists.
2. In 2012, the program distributed $664 million in bonuses to nearly 170,000 primary care providers.
3. The program provided bonuses for physicians who specialized in family medicine, internal medicine and geriatrics.
4. MedPAC proposed a plan for Congress to replace the primary care incentive program with a per-beneficiary payment to primary care physicians. The program would reduce payments for non-primary services. The proposal has not made headway.
5. Merely 25 percent of surveyed primary care physician said they received a bonus payment with half of surveyed physicians unaware the program existed.
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