Physicians and the groups who represent them in Washington have been arguing for years that the Sustainable Growth Rate formula used in setting physician payments under Medicare is broken and needs to be replaced.
Driving home that point is the 27% cut in Medicare physician fees slated to take effect in just 6 weeks on March 1.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Brooklyn Museum; A. Augustus Healy Fund/Creative Commons License
Now physicians have an ally in the form of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). MedPAC announced its own plan to replace the SGR last fall and recently reaffirmed its support for getting rid of the troublesome formula.
Check out this edition of the Policy & Practice podcast to hear more about the MedPAC’s frustration with Congress, how the Obama administration plans to defend the health reform law before the Supreme Court, and the latest trends in health spending.
---Mary Ellen Schneider