The cut, which is set to take effect Jan. 1, has been slammed by physicians since it was first announced.
“For the fifth consecutive year, Congress has adjourned and allowed Medicare cuts,” American Medical Association President Bruce Scott, MD, said in a Dec. 21 news release. “What will be the result? Patients struggling to access health care. Physicians closing or selling their private practices while others opt to leave the profession.”
Physicians’ Medicare pay rates have dropped 33% over 20 years, and Congress has not accounted for inflation adjustments, prior authorization reforms and rising care costs, according to the organization.
The group has warned that without reform to the Medicare payment system, physicians are going to face “an oncoming crisis” in medical care, Dr. Scott said.
The AMA has supported bipartisan legislation to stop cuts, including the Strengthening Medicare for Patients Providers Act, which would give physicians an annual Medicare payment update tied to the Medicare Economic Index.
The group also backs the bipartisan Provider Reimbursement Stability Act, which would reform the Medicare payment schedule budget-neutrality policies by requiring CMS to reconcile inaccurate utilization projections based on actual claims and prospectively revise the conversion factor accordingly.
The group has also developed a statutory proposal to replace Medicare’s Merit-based Incentive Payment Systems model of payment adjustments with an approach tied to annual payment updates. The replacement would give CMS incentives to share data with physicians and improve the measures, the AMA said.
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