Senate Fails to Pass 30 Day Extension in Medicare Physician Payment Rates
With just days remaining before the most recent short-term Medicare physician payment freeze is set to expire and a 21 percent payment cut to take effect, the House passed bill HR 4691 on February 25 to extend the current physician payment rates for another 30 days. However, the Senate failed to pass this same bill and the 21% Medicare physician payment cut will be effective March 1. The Senate is expected to take up the bill again on Monday, March 1, with a vote anticipated by March 3. In the meantime, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have informed the AMA that it will be notifying its contractors to hold Medicare physician claims for ten business days beginning on March 1.
If no action is taken by the Senate, Medicare is obligated to rerun the Sustainable Growth Rate formula and recalculate the conversion factor for the rest of the year for the office and freestanding settings. This recalculation would implement a cut in physician payment rates close to the -21.2% cut projected for 2010. Medicare will have to rerun the physician fee schedule numbers if there are any changes made to the current conversion factor of $36.08, and this also may cause payment delays.
The College will continue to keep members informed of any developments regarding this very important issue. Please look for the latest updates to be posted on the ACR Web site home page under the ACR News Center.
For further information, please contact ACR Senior Director of Government Relations Josh Cooper at jcooper@acr-arrs.org.
