Posted on 11/10/2009 4:35:15 AM PST by Koblenz
WASHINGTON – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced on Oct. 30 a 21.2 percent 2010 pay cut for physicians participating in Medicare.
CMS officials said they had anticipated a 21.5 percent pay cut for physicians in 2010, but new data allowed them to lower the cut to 21.2 percent.
"The administration tried to avert the pending fee schedule cut in the FY 2010 budget proposal that it submitted to Congress, and remains committed to repealing the sustainable growth rate," said Jonathan Blum, director of the CMS' Center for Medicare Management.
In the meantime, CMS officials are preparing a proposal to remove physician-administered drugs from the definition of 'physicians' services' for purposes of computing the physician fee schedule update. While this decision will not affect payments for services during CY 2010, CMS projects it will have a positive effect on future payment updates, Blum said.
CMS is also adopting several refinements to Medicare payments to physicians that are expected to improve payment rates for primary care services relative to other services, Blum said.
J. James Rohack, MD, president of the American Medical Association, said the pay cut is the largest that physicians participating in Medicare have had to face. Access to care and choice of physicians for seniors is at risk unless Congress permanently fixes the payment formula, he said.
"Short-term fixes have grown the problem," Rohack said. "In four years the cost of a permanent solution ballooned from $49 billion to more than $200 billion and cuts increased from under 5 percent to a whopping 21.2 percent."
CMS is mandated to adjust the Medicare physician fee schedule annually, based on a formula using the sustainable growth rate adopted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Using the formula, CMS has issued negative updates every year beginning in 2002. Congress has intervened over the past several years to postpone a pay cut.
CMS expects the final rule to be published in the Nov. 25 Federal Register, and the agency will accept comments until Dec. 29.
The House is expected to vote soon on legislation (H.R. 3961) to permanently repeal the current Medicare physician payment formula.
Hoo-weee, Hope and Change. Well, I Hope that people will beable to find a Dr for their care needs after this Change.
I Hope I do not need to Change Drs because of this.
Hopey-Changey. Love the Obamao.....MMMMMM MMMMMMM
Funds are going to hospice care instead. Sound like Germany 1933? Behold the Pelosi camps.
Take the Kings coin, do his bidding. Dr’s in order to maintain their exclusive guild monopoly on the practice of Medicine, and through ignorance of political history, long since got into bed with the government. Well, guess what Doctors? Get on your knees, do the dirty deed, then get up, wipe your chin, and go mop the kitchen floor. Or else.
Once the Doctors really get bitchy, and pull a strike or something, they’ll start pulling licenses. Further, you know President Hussain can’t wait to import tens of thousands of Nidal Husains into the country. For the children, of course.
Physicians=political suckers.
My 10th grade daughter has been interested in science and medicine since 6th grade. Last week, she said she’s not about to go to med school, work her butt off and pile up loans only to work for the government and be told where to work and how much she can be paid.
“Fixing” this at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars was essentially a bribe Obama is paying AMA not to oppose Obamacare. This amount was originally included as part of the cost of the House health reform plan, but CBO scored that plan as adding about one quarter trillion a year to the deficit. In Obama’s health care speech he insisted on a reform plan that wouldn’t add anything to the deficit, i.e., that would be fully paid for by budget savings or tax increases without any “gimmicks.” So the House “solved” their problem by just removing the physician fix from their bill, instantaneously making it budget-neutral. In the meantime, they planned to enact the physician fix separately without paying for it. That is, it simply will add to the $90 trillion unfunded liability faced by Medicare. But, of course, this separate bill won’t be counted as part of health reform (even though the doctors would vehemently oppose Obamacare absent being bought off), hence Obama’s promise in a very narrowly construed sense won’t be broken.
How’s that for honesty and transparency?
This cruel rip-off of Medicare oriented doctors is designed to soften up any Senior resistance to 0-care. To where they are begging for 0-care because it has to be better than the mess the 0-bots will make out of Medicare
Good luck finding a doctor who accepts Medicare in the near future. Good luck finding a doctor in general if Obamacare is enacted into law. So who will be the health care providers in the future? Nurse practitioners and physician assistants, who lack the education, training, and clinical expertise of physicians but are oh, so much cheaper to pay for.
Gonna be some LONG lines the ER as we are the ONLY people in the entire Medical system who can’t say no thanks to EMTALA.
Good luck finding more docs to work in the ER’s too. I have about 5 years to go in my career then I am out of here. Maybe that timeline is getting shorter....
My doctor stops accepting Medicare/Medicaid on January 1, 2010. He has signs all over his office.
Doctors get a cut, benefits get cut and my premium went up, too.
Just a shadowy imagine of the death panels. Elderly and can’t find a doc? You die. And it’s free too, because the gov’t won’t have the administration cost denying the patient. They just whine and cry how unfortunate it is there’s not enough doctors. And the sheep prance and bounce in glee...
“This cruel rip-off of Medicare oriented doctors is designed to soften up any Senior resistance to 0-care.”
Exactly. The timing says it all.
Medicare faces ‘whopping’ doctor shortage in 2011.................
Would someone please tell me how taking money from someone, filtering thru the DC bureaucracy and then rationing out the leftovers to selected age groups will benefit the end user. Taking out the “middle man” will always save everyone money...............
The people who will not be covered are the medicare recipients. The foul government takes money from them every month but the people will not be able to get doctors and will be rationed care.
The government basically forces people into medicare by a threat of financial punishment if they don’t take it when offered.
Our government is not a government of, by, or for, the people anymore.
Semms some are waking up...... but it is getting more critical each day that they be stopped.
Now you see one of the reasons for the desperation to take over our health care system now. Their failed socialistic policies of the past are coming to fruit and they need to act fast before people figure out what a sham the whole thing really is.
“Would someone please tell me how taking money from someone, filtering thru the DC bureaucracy and then rationing out the leftovers to selected age groups will benefit the end user. Taking out the “middle man” will always save everyone money...............”
It is all about power, the rationing will be more heavily weighted towards supporters of the democrat party. Just like unions are given “special status” and gays, minorities, etc. democrats believe we are all equal, just some are more equal...and those who are more equal must support the democrat party. It is incredibly corrupt.
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