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For Immediate Release
September 18, 2006 |
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Shays Calls for Action to
Fix Medicare Physician Payments
Washington, D.C. –Congressman Christopher Shays joined
265 of his colleagues in writing to Speaker of the House Dennis
Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to urge consideration
of legislation to prevent Medicare physician payments from
being cut 5 percent before adjourning in October.
“This isn’t just an issue about doctors’
pay,” said Shays. “It’s a quality of care
and access to care issue. Because of stagnating Medicare payments,
many physicians find it simpler to stop accepting new Medicare
patients. We have a flawed Medicare payment formula that has
to be fixed now to ensure physicians can continue to deliver
high-quality care in our region.”
“The scheduled 5.1% decrease in payment for physician
services next year in the face of 4% inflationary cost increases
may well be the beginning of the end,” said Dr. Burton
Rubin, Current President of Fairfield County Medical Association.
“Physician surveys demonstrate the cuts will force doctors
to accept fewer Medicare patients – despite a burgeoning
population of beneficiaries - and delay the purchase of information
technology next year, which is central to quality improvement
measures in medical practice, according to experts and the
current administration.”
Shays is an original cosponsor of H.R. 3617, the Medicare
Value-Based Purchasing for Physician's Services Act, introduced
by Connecticut Congresswoman Nancy Johnson, the Chair of the
Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. This legislation would
replace the sustainable growth rate formula, which is scheduled
to cut physicians’ payments nearly 40 percent by 2015,
with a new formula that would be tied to the Medicare Economic
Index, which is Medicare’s measure of the increasing
costs of medical services. Physicians would be guaranteed
a 1.5 percent increase while the new system is being developed.
In December, Shays voted for S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction
Act, which passed the House by a vote of 218 to 214. This
legislation included a provision to eliminate the 4.4 percent
cut in physician payments.
The text of the letter is attached below:
Dear Mr. Speaker and Ms. Democratic Leader:
If Congress does not act soon, the Medicare sustainable growth
rate (SGR) formula will cut payments to physicians and health
care professionals by almost 5%, effective January 1, 2007.
When added to the additional cuts required under current law
through 2015, physician payments will be reduced by a total
of 37% even as liability insurance, fuel, and other costs
escalate more rapidly than inflation and the need to invest
in health information technology to improve care quality is
increasingly important.
The undersigned Members respectfully urge you to ensure these
impending cuts are addressed before Congress adjourns in October.
It takes some period of time for CMS to implement a change
in the physician fee schedule update and we must avoid the
needless and expensive upheaval required to retroactively
fix physician payments, as we did this year. At a minimum,
we must provide a modest increase for physicians as they received
a zero increase this year and are being encouraged to adopt
health information technology.
Physicians are the foundation of our nation's health care
system. A stable and predictable payment law for physician
service delivery is critical to preserving a patient centered
care system. Currently, the average 2006 Medicare physician
payment rates are about the same as they were in 2001. If
the 2007 cut is imposed, then Medicare physician payment rates
since 2001 will have fallen 20% below the government’s
conservative measure of inflation for medical practice costs.
These projected payment cuts will destabilize the Medicare
program and put all patients’ access to health care
at risk. The lack of predictability in Medicare payments encourages
older physicians with older patients to retire early and discourages
young doctors from entering specialties that treat predominately
Medicare patients. The Congressionally-created Council on
Graduate Medical Education is predicting a shortage of 85,000
physicians by 2020. Multi-year cuts in Medicare will likely
exacerbate this shortage. Additionally, the five-year review
of relative value units (RVUs) makes important strides in
adjusting for long-standing payment inequities but the budget
neutrality requirement, especially in the absence of an increase
in payment, will further cut many physicians’ reimbursement.
The lack of an overall increase in physician payments undermines
the keystone of Medicare: the widespread participation by
top notch physicians.
To preserve Medicare patients’ access to care, we must
act immediately to avert these cuts to Medicare physician
payments. We ask that you work quickly with the Committee
on Ways and Means, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and
the undersigned to address this critical issue. Thank you
for your attention to this urgent matter.
Contact: Sarah Moore, 202/225-5541
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