Negotiations Continue After Motion to Vote on Medicare Legislation Fails
Senate Democrats failed to garner the necessary 60 votes needed to invoke cloture on debate and move to a vote on the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (S. 3101) by a tally of 54-39.
The bill seeks to prevent the looming 10.6 percent physician payment cut called for by Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula set to go into effect on July 1. The measure replaces the 10.6 percent cut as well as a 5 percent cut set for Jan. 1, with a 0.5 percent positive update for the rest of 2008 and a 1.1 percent update through 2009.
The legislation also calls for providers of advanced diagnostic imaging services (MR, CT, PET, and nuclear medicine) to be accredited in order to receive payment for the technical component of those services and establishes a two-year voluntary demonstration program to test the use of physician developed Appropriateness Criteria.
The action today represents the latest turn in what has been a winding road towards what the ACR hopes is an eventual compromise. Consideration of a modified Medicare package will be pushed into next week as the July 1 deadline looms.
The ACR will continue to work hard throughout this process to ensure that the physician pay cut is avoided without cutting imaging to offset the cost, and that the accreditation and Appropriateness Criteria provisions are included in a final Medicare bill.
For further information, please contact ACR’s Senior Director of Government Relations, Josh Cooper, at jcooper@acr.org, or ACR’s Director of Congressional Affairs, Orrin Marcella, at omarcella@acr.org.