WASHINGTON — President Obama signed legislation Nov. 30 that delays a scheduled 23 percent Medicare pay cut for physicians until Dec. 31. The Physician Payment and Therapy Relief Act of 2010 replaced the reimbursement cut, which was to take effect Dec. 1, with a 2.2 percent increase.
That gives congressional lawmakers in the lame duck session more time to work out a payment fix for all of 2011. That also gives the industry more time to work on a delay of the elimination of the first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs, which is scheduled to take effect in January.
Mobility advocates have targeted the doc fix as possible legislation that could carry language to delay elimination of the option for a year in exchange for a 1 percent reduction in the CPI. For more, see Swift Support Needed to Delay Elimination of First-Month Purchase Option, Sept. 8.