Temporary Reprieve

U.S. senators returned from the holiday break and put a halt to the 10.6% physician Medicare rate cut, but the president has vowed to veto the bill.

The U.S. Senate’s vote of 69 to 30 along with the House vote of 355 in support should be veto-proof; but you never know how they ultimately will vote when the time comes.

If finalized, the new bill will maintain current reimbursement levels for physicians through 2008 and allow for a 1.1 percent increase in the pay rate for 2009. This is much better than what will happen if it fails.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced it would not process claims at the reduced rate until July 15, allowing Congress to return to the capitol and deal with the issue again. Read the statement from the secretary of Health and Human Services.

The AMA used the congressional recess period to air ads on ratio and TV, pressuring senators – including Indiana's Sen. Lugar – to change their nay vote to yea, in favor of the measure. "A group of U.S. senators voted to protect the powerful insurance companies' huge profits at the expense of Medicare patients' access to doctors," said AMA President Nancy Nielsen, M.D., in the media ads.

Over the month of June, patients and physicians made more than 41,000 calls to Congress urging action through the AMA's grassroots hotline alone.

The survey below was performed in 2005 by the ISMA. It asked physicians about future Medicare participation in light of planned reimbursement cuts. At that time, 42 percent of respondents said they were likely to stop seeing Medicare patients if projected cuts materialized.

Since 2005 we have certainly been more frustrated with the inability of congress to fix the problem and if these cuts go through, we along with many other local physicians will stop seeing new Medicare patients.