Docs Get Six-Month Reprieve; Industry Looking for Longer Fix

LATE-BREAKING: CMS’ proposed physician fee schedule for
2011, released late Friday, calls for a 6.1 percent cut for
Medicare physician services that would take effect Jan. 1,
2011.

As outlined under health reform, the proposed regulation
would also expand Round 2 of the DMEPOS competitive bidding
program from 70 MSAs to 91, for a total of 100 in the national
bidding program.

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed legislation Friday
canceling a scheduled 21.2 percent pay cut for Medicare physicians
and instead giving them a 2.2 percent increase. While it offers the
docs some current relief, the new measure is effective only through
the end of November.

That means months, a decade even, of congressional wrangling
over the issue could start up again before the year’s end, offering
HME advocates another shot at a possible legislative vehicle that
could carry language to stop competitive bidding.

The American Medical Association and other physician groups have
been urging Congress to revise Medicare’s current “sustainable
growth rate,” or SGR, payment formula — which has resulted in
annual pay decreases for physicians over the past decade — in
favor of a permanent fix. But the cost of such a change has quashed
any long-term action.

“Delaying the problem is not a solution,” the AMA said in a
statement issued last week. “It doesn’t solve the Medicare mess
Congress has created with a long series of short-term Medicare
patches over the last decade — including four to avert the
2010 cut alone.”

In December, the physician pay cut “will be a whopping 23
percent, increasing to nearly 30 percent in January,” the statement
read.

“The baby boomers begin entering Medicare in six months, and if
the physician payment problem isn’t fixed, these new Medicare
patients won’t be able to find a doctor to treat them,” the AMA
said.

In a Friday afternoon legislative update, Waterloo, Iowa-based
VGM Group said because the cuts to physician reimbursement have
only been postponed through November, “the temporary ‘doc fix’ will
need to be addressed once again towards the end of the year. This
will offer another vehicle to eliminate competitive bidding.”

In the meantime, the group urged continued support for H.R. 3790
to repeal the bidding program.

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