June 01, 2023

Bipartisan Legislation Introduced to Mitigate Practice Expense Cuts

U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Tony Cardenas (D-CA), Greg Murphy, MD (R-NC), and Danny Davis (D-IL) introduced the Providing Relief and Stability for Medicare Patients Act of 2023 (H.R. 3674) May 27.

Clinical labor staff, medical supplies and equipment costs are three components of direct practice expense (PE) inputs, costs directly associated with the provision of a service or procedure. They are budget neutral, which means that an increase in payment for one component typically means a proportional code-level decrease in payment in the other components.

If enacted, the legislation would mitigate significant code-level cuts resulting from a recent clinical labor update by providing an increase to non-facility PE relative value units for those procedures performed in an office-based setting that utilize high-tech medical devices and/or equipment.

The American College of Radiology® (ACR®) joins the Society for Interventional Radiology, the American Society for Radiation Oncology and many others in supporting this legislation and looks forward to working to ensure final passage.

For more information, contact Rebecca Spangler, ACR Senior Government Relations Director.