Each year, physicians and other healthcare providers must sweat out the reimbursement schedules and whether or not the infamous slashing of payments will take effect. Last year, as you will recall, doctors were in jeopardy of having 23% cuts for services rendered until at the eleventh hour, the “doc fix” prevented these cuts. This, too, I explained would limit the number of physicians who will accept Medicare for payment in the future.
Now, we may be in luck!
Three National groups representing doctors appealed to the House subcommittee this week and laid out plans for removal of the current Sustainable Growth System which first buying ventolin over the counter appeared in the 1990s as a formula for Medicare payments.
The AMA proposed a “five-year period of stable Medicare physician payments that keep pace with the growth in medical practice costs”. The American Academy of Family Physicians, stressing the need to increase the number of family physicians or general practice doctors, feels that the fee schedule should be higher for this specialty to entice newly graduating medical students into this field.
The American College of Surgeons proposes a transition interval of 5 years where the payment schedule would vary in growth and established a “realistic budget baseline” for reimbursement growth in the future.
