Jaan Sidorov
Posted 12/21/11 on The Disease Management Care Blog
Don’t underestimate the physician dismay over the looming “Doc Fix” debacle. Unless some budget compromise gets hammered out, Medicare is about to stick it to a lot of docs.
Ever since the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress has been repeatedly delaying a yearly mandated cut in Medicare’s physician fees. That statutory reduction has been slowly accumulating through no fault of the physician community and is now estimated to be more than 27%. Assuming most physicians’ practices are made up by a majority of Medicare beneficiaries, that represents a huge hit to their cash flow. KHN has a good summary of the partisan mutual assured destruction that has led us to this crisis here.
Continue reading “Why Medicare Access Is In Jeopardy In Both Salaried and Physician Owned Settings”
With the Budget Control Act of 2011 now signed into law, health care lobbyists are preparing to fight any changes to federal programs that affect their constituents. One particular concern for physicians is the scheduled 30 percent cut to Medicare reimbursement mandated by the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula.