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Medicare News
Reduction in Medicare Reimbursement to Physicians
May Limit New Patients
AMA President says 45% of doctors will limit
Medicare practice
 July
19, 2006 - Forty-five percent of physicians in the
American Medical
Association plan to decrease or stop the acceptance of new
Medicare beneficiaries and
TRICARE
members if Congress does not act to stop a 5% decrease in Medicare
physician payments that is scheduled to take effect in 2007, AMA
President Jeremy Lazarus said on Tuesday, the
AP/South Florida
Sun-Sentinel reports.
Speaking at a hospital in Tampa, Fla., Lazarus
said, "Over the next nine years, Medicare will cut physician payments
37% unless Congress acts before Jan. 1, 2007," adding, "At the same
time, the cost of caring for those patients will increase 22% -- and
that math just doesn't add up."
The Bush administration has said the payment
reductions are necessary to slow spending growth in Medicare.
Meanwhile, 80 members of Congress sent a letter on
Monday urging Senate leaders to take up debate on the payment schedule
issue before Congress adjourns in October. The letter, signed by Sen.
Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and others,
states, "These projected cuts will destabilize the Medicare program and
put at risk all patients' access to health care" (Davis, AP/South
Florida Sun-Sentinel, 7/19).
Medical Imaging
In related news, several lawmakers and witnesses testifying at a hearing
of the House Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on
Health said scheduled reductions in Medicare payments for
medical imaging should be delayed until 2009 to allow the
Government
Accountability Office to study the cuts' potential impact,
CQ HealthBeat
reports.
The cuts, which would reduce payments by $2.8
billion over five years, are included in a fiscal year 2006 spending cut
package.
At the hearing, Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.) asked
Glenn Hackbarth, chair of the
Medicare Payment
Advisory Committee, for "proof" that the cuts were needed in
part to discourage physicians from supplementing their incomes by
ordering many medical imaging tests.
Hackbarth said, "I can give you examples of it
happening," adding that companies have promoted medical imaging to
physicians at conferences as a method of increasing income. Rep. Lois
Capps (D-Calif.) expressed concern that the cuts would limit cancer
patients' access to radiation therapy.
Herb Kuhn, director of the Center for Medicare
Management at
CMS,
said the agency hopes to address that issue during the comment period
for an upcoming rule proposal on how to implement the scheduled payment
reductions (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 7/18).
"Reprinted with permission
from
kaisernetwork.org You can view the entire
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, and sign up
for email delivery at
www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser
Daily Health Policy Report is published for
kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family
Foundation. © 2006 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation.
All rights reserved.”
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