Congressional Health Care Agenda Uncertain Following Katrina
Because of the tragic impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast region of the United States, and its enormous consequences on the federal budget, the legislative calendar for the first session of the 109th US Congress has been upended. As this edition of the Advocate goes to print, the fate of legislation the College has initiated to mandate federal quality, safety, and training standards on complex diagnostic medical imaging services in Medicare (Designated Physician Medical Imager policy) remains unclear. Whether physicians will receive a positive dollar conversion factor in their Medicare payments or face a 4.3% reduction if no law is passed is also unknown.
While the waning days of a congressional session are nearly always unpredictable, veterans of DC's political wars say that the chaos now reigning on Capitol Hill is almost unprecedented. The Senate Finance Committee has given no indication of whether Medicare savings provisions will be included in this year's budget reconciliation bill, much less if committee members can overcome internal discord and actually get this bill out of committee. This budget bill is significant since it provides the vehicle for most Medicare policies to be legislated, which would include the College's DPMI initiative. Senate and House Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on what will be contained in a Hurricane Katrina relief package; Republican fiscal conservatives in the House are calling for across-the-board cuts in federal programs to pay for any Katrina aid; and all this disagreement threatens whether there will be any Medicare savings policies enacted this year.
In addition to the questions surrounding the status of budget reconciliation legislation, and an end-of-the year omnibus appropriations bill, the timetable for floor action on important health care initiatives is also unclear. Congress will likely not make any further attempt to pass medical liability reform legislation in this session.
Because legislation remedying the 4.3% reduction in the 2006 physician fee schedule and legislation establishing so-called pay-for-performance (P4P) programs would likely only be taken up as part of budget reconciliation or an omnibus appropriations bill rather than as free-standing legislation, it is unclear when or if these measures will be addressed.
What the ACR IS Doing
On September 7, the ACR established a Web page, www.acr.org/ relief, to provide current updates on Hurricane Katrina and allow information to be shared with ACR staff that have been monitoring the crisis. The week of September 12, the ACR posted an ACR Katrina Relief Forum site (http://katrinarelief.acr.org/forums) that allows radiologists and radiology groups to share their needs and match those needs with radiology groups willing to take on radiologists or assist in other ways.
The ACR has worked with other radiology organizations to respond to this catastrophe and these organizations have responded to our collective members' needs. In addition, organized radiology has worked directly with the federal and state governments and the American Red Cross to lend radiology's hand to their efforts.
The relief, relocation, and rebuilding efforts of the Gulf Coast states will take time to complete. Meanwhile, the ACR will remain steadfast in its commitment to continue to lend support to this effort.
The following radiology organizations have responded to the needs of Hurricane Katrina victims by listing resources on their Web sites. Please visit them for more information or contact ACR at (800) 227-5463, ext 4975, or Katrina-relief@acr.org.
American Association of Physicists in Medicine (www.aapm.org)
American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (http://www.arrt.org)
American Roentgen Ray Society (http://www.arrs.org)
American Society of Radiologic Technologists (http://www.asrt.org)
American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (http://www.astro.org)
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (http://www.nema.org)
Radiology Business Management Association (http://www.rbma.org)
Radiological Society of North American (http://www.rsna.org)
Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (http://www.sdms.org)
The American Board of Radiology (http://www.theabr.org)
The Society for Interventional Radiology (http://www.sirweb.org)
The Society of Nuclear Medicine (http://www.snm.org)