CMS on Friday ordered Medicare intermediaries to process claims under the cut for services provided on or after June 1. While the Senate passed a fee fix on Friday, giving physicians a 2.2 percent increase through Nov. 30, it is unclear when the House would pass the measure.
The House took a long weekend and won’t be in session until Tuesday evening. Furthermore, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has announced she would not bring the fee fix up for vote because the Senate removed it from an unemployment measure she wanted passed.
Meanwhile, here is the USA Today list of recent surveys of physicians taken by national and state medical groups before the latest fee cut crisis:
- 13 percent of family physicians in a survey by the American Academy of Family Physicians said they didn’t participate in Medicare last year, up from 8 percent in 2008 and 6 percent in 2004.
- 15 percent of DOs in a survey by the American Osteopathic Association said they don’t participate in Medicare and 19 percent don’t accept new Medicare patients. If the fee cut is not rescinded, AOA said both numbers would double.
- 17 percent of physicians and 31 percent of primary care physicians surveyed by the AMA said they would restrict the number of Medicare patients in their practice.
- 18 percent of Illinois physicians said they restrict the number of Medicare patients in their practice in a survey by the Illinois State Medical Society.
- 117 physicians in North Carolina have opted out of Medicare since January, the North Carolina Medical Society said.
- 1,100 physicians in New York State have left Medicare, including the president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, the MSSNY said.
Politico said the last time the automatic pay cut was allowed to go into effect was in 2002, when 4.8 percent was sliced from physician reimbursements, less than one-quarter of the level today.
Read the USA Today report on the fee cut.
