|
E-mail this page to a friend!
Medicare News
Medicare May Trade Physician Pay Cut for Quality of
Care Reports
'Pay-for-performance necessary due to
rapid growth in
spending on Part B'
July 29, 2006 – The tug-of-war between the Centers
for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the American Medical Association
over what Medicare will pay for physician services, took an interesting
turn last week with the suggestion by the CMS administrator that the
government may scrap the reduction the pay rate if the doctors will
agree to providing the data necessary to measure the quality of care.
This could lead to paying individual physicians at rates tied to the
quality of their service.
 McClellan Calls for Quality Measures, Reversal of
Medicare Physician Payment Cuts
CMS
Administrator Mark McClellan on Thursday said the Bush administration
likely will push Congress to reverse a 5% Medicare physician payment cut
scheduled for next year under the condition that doctors report data
enabling the agency to measure the quality of their care,
CQ HealthBeat
reports.
In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce
Health Subcommittee,
McClellan rejected suggestions by lawmakers that quality measures are
not developed enough to tie them to physicians payments, saying that 34
physician specialties already have adopted quality-measurement methods
that they could use when seeking reimbursement from Medicare.
Only five specialties lack such measures, he added.
McClellan also suggested that hospitals are a good model for physicians
to follow because those that report data on quality receive higher
payment updates.
With respect to working to reverse the scheduled
payment reduction, McClellan said, "We still want to make sure we're
addressing it in a way that doesn't increase overall costs and
beneficiary premiums."
He added that pay-for-performance measures are
especially necessary because of the rapid growth in spending on Medicare
Part B, which pays for physician services.
Committee Chair Joe Barton (R-Texas) expressed
interest in addressing physician spending issues by switching the
payment formula to yearly payment increases that would be based on the
change in the Medicare Economic Index, which tracks the costs of
delivering physician care.
McClellan said such a change would be costly. He
noted, "We should be paying for care in a way that encourages improved
quality and keep overall costs down" (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 7/27).
"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.”
|
Nursing Home Abuse, Medical Malpractice? Contact a lawyer.
click here
|
|
Click to More Senior News on the
Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
