AMCNO Urges Members to contact Senators Voinovich and Brown – Repeal the Medicare SGR

This week, the United States Senate is planning to review legislation that would repeal the flawed Medicare SGR payment system. If passed, the bill would avert the bill will avert physician Medicare payment cuts of 40 percent over the next several years, including an impending 21 percent cut in 2010. Permanently repealing the SGR formula is critical to the goal of ensuring Medicare program security, stability and access for seniors.

The proposed bill which is known as the “Medicare Physicians Fairness Act – S 1776 - will also eliminate the accumulated debt under the current payment system, estimated to be $163 billion over the next 10 years. The accumulated debt is the result of budgeting used in the past to provide temporary relief from impending SGR cuts, which created a worse budgetary situation since it moved the costs to future years.

By rebasing the Medicare payment system, S. 1776 will temporarily freeze current rates, but will also make way for a new payment formula that will more accurately reflect practice expense inflation from year to year. The AMCNO is urging you to contact Ohio U.S. Senators to ask for their support of S 1776. To contact Senator Voinovich call (202) 224-3353, to contact Senator Brown call (202) 224-2315.