HR 6331 fails to pass
Although the House passed H.R. 6331 (the Medicare funding bill), the Senate did not pass it and therefore as of July 1, 2008 the scheduled 10% cuts in reimbursement to physicians will take effect.
In addition, Medicare payments to physicians and other healthcare professionals will fall more than 5% more under the program’s proposed fee schedule for 2009.
The CMS projects it will pay $54 billion to 980,000 physicians and other healthcare professionals in calendar year 2009. This is down from an estimated $57 billion this year and is occurring as the population ages and nearly every other expense in life is increasing
This bill not only cuts reimbursement, but it increases the oversight burden to providers by adding 56 new measures to the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, for a total of 175 in 2009.
Many physicians are going to stop accepting new Medicare and Tricare patients because of these cuts and this will lead to more emergency room visits and actual higher costs to the taxpayers.
This is extremely shortsighted by the congress.
In addition, Medicare payments to physicians and other healthcare professionals will fall more than 5% more under the program’s proposed fee schedule for 2009.
The CMS projects it will pay $54 billion to 980,000 physicians and other healthcare professionals in calendar year 2009. This is down from an estimated $57 billion this year and is occurring as the population ages and nearly every other expense in life is increasing
This bill not only cuts reimbursement, but it increases the oversight burden to providers by adding 56 new measures to the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, for a total of 175 in 2009.
Many physicians are going to stop accepting new Medicare and Tricare patients because of these cuts and this will lead to more emergency room visits and actual higher costs to the taxpayers.
This is extremely shortsighted by the congress.
posted by Anonymous at 5:58 AM
3 Comments:
There was an article on the internet written by Jim Abrams from Associated Press.
"The Bush administration said Monday it is freezing a scheduled 10 percent fee cut for doctors who treat Medicare patients, giving Congress time to act to prevent the cuts when lawmakers return from a July 4 recess"
Unfortunately the article goes on to say that CMS will hold claims for dates of service July 1 until July 15th at the earliest.
Since I work in the billing dept. of a cardiology practice I know how hard this will hit physicians' cash flow.
Yes, this will be even worse in the short term, because no money is actually worse than some money.
This is just a small picture of what a national healthcare policy would do when you have congressman who do not understand the impact they have on practices.
"From everyone who has been given much, much will be required: and to whom they entrusted much. of him they will ask all the more."
Luke 12:48
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