Fight against Medicare physician pay cut begins

The fight against a scheduled 10% cut to the Physician Fee Schedule in 2008 has begun – since the American Medical Assn. (AMA) has released its new survey results that predict serious consequences for physician offices around the country if the cut were to go through. According to an AMA survey of 9,000 physicians nationwide, if payments are slashed by 10% next year, 14% of the physicians say they will stop treating Medicare patients, 54% will cut staff and 67% will delay implementing health information technology. The AMA is recommending that Congress equalize payments between private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans and traditional Medicare fee for service plans, a move that would save about $61 billion over the next five years, about as much as it would cost to fund the 1.7% increase. The recommendation matches that of MedPAC, which reported this spring that MA plans receive payments averaging 12% higher than traditional plans administered by CMS. The AMCNO will be writing to Congress on this issue and launching a letter writing campaign for physicians in the new future.