Groups Caution Congress Against Including Medicare Cuts in Budget Bill
The
The full text of the letter is below and can be downloaded in pdf format here.https://searchlf.ama-assn.org/undefined/documentDownload?uri=%2Funstructured%2Fbinary%2Fletter%2FLETTERS%2FPhysician-MVC-Letter-final-02-05-18.pdf
Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer, Speaker Ryan, and Leader Pelosi:
On behalf of the undersigned physician organizations, we are writing to express our strong opposition to further Medicare cuts by the extension of misvalued code adjustments beyond 2018.
This misguided policy has already eliminated much of the minimal statutory updates
In 2014,
By not recognizing the efforts of the physician community to reallocate relative values that already had been underway for eight years by the time PAMA was adopted, the targets were unrealistic, essentially guaranteeing billions in Medicare cuts that were used to offset other policies.
It is our understanding that you are now considering extension of these policies for an additional two years. When
Because the work to revalue codes has been going on for over a decade, there are simply not enough services with sufficient volume left to review and revalue to meet these targets. In fact, due to the regulatory timeline the work to revalue codes for the 2019 fee schedule is already completed, guaranteeing that extension of this policy would virtually wipe out the entire 2019 update. A two-year extension of this policy will generate additional cuts in 2020 when MACRA provides for an update of 0 percent--meaning actual payment rates for all physicians will go down for the second time since this flawed policy was adopted.
Extension of the misvalued codes policy for two years would cause Medicare payment rates to drop to levels below the 2015 rate prior to repeal of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, completely erasing the investment
We strongly urge you to not destabilize the Medicare program and ongoing efforts to transform it by extending this flawed policy.
Sincerely,
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