Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced June 14 that they have extended the hold on Medicare claims until June 18 in an effort to give Congress a few more days to retroactively reverse the 21% pay cut called for by the Sustainable Growth Rate formula.
The cut to physician payments technically went into effect on June 1, after the Senate failed to pass legislation to delay or repeal the scheduled cuts. The House passed a bill May 28 that would have replaced the cuts with small pay increases through 2011. The Senate is slated to resume consideration of that bill (H.R. 4213) this week.
As senators wrap up work on the bill, lawmakers may consider a longer-term pay fix for physicians. The American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Osteopathic Association have thrown their support behind a proposal that would provide physicians with small pay increases through 2013, as well as slightly higher payments for primary care in 2012 and 2013.
Whatever pay fix proposal garners support, the Senate is under pressure to vote on the bill quickly. In his weekly address on June 12, President Obama called on lawmakers to permanently replace the Medicare physician payment formula, which requires these steep cuts. In the meantime, he urged them to do something to stop the current cuts from going into effect now.
“I’m absolutely willing to take the difficult steps necessary to lower the cost of Medicare and put our budget on a more fiscally sustainable path,” President Obama said. “But I’m not willing to do that by punishing hard-working physicians or the millions of Americans who count on Medicare. That’s just wrong. And that’s why in the short-term, Congress must act to prevent this pay cut to doctors.”