The American College of Radiology® (ACR®) sent two separate calls to action (CTAs) to members this week asking them to weigh in with Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding CMS’ new Evaluation and Management (E/M) policy scheduled to begin Jan. 1, 2021.
The first CTA (Dear Colleague Letter) encourages ACR members to contact their congressional representative to request they cosign a letter from Representatives Bera, MD (D-CA) and Bucshon, MD (R-IN), to House Leadership urging them to stop cuts associated with the new CMS E/M policy. The authors’ goal is to gather as many signatures as possible to demonstrate to the House leadership of both parties that the E/M issue is a priority and needs to be resolved legislatively prior to the Jan. 1, 2021 implementation date.
The second CTA (CMS Comments)* empowers ACR members to submit formal comments regarding the impending E/M policy implementation in response to the CMS’ 2021 Medicare Fee Schedule Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) issued in July. The comments detail the primary reasons why now is not the time for CMS to implement the new E/M policy. Comments are due by Oct. 5, 2020.
The ACR encourages members to respond to both CTAs so that they can make their voices heard to both branches of government that have the power to rescind the E/M cuts.
*CMS uses www.regulations.gov for comments; however, we have heard from other associations/groups that without notice the site URL changes making it difficult for CTAs like ours to link accurately. If you run into an issue where you cannot access the comment letter using our CTA, please feel free to use the link provided above and copy and paste the following in the search box: Docket (CMS-2020-0088).
*Note: if you are sharing this action alert with your colleagues, please use the universal links above and do not forward Call to Action emails received from govrelations@acr.org, as those emails contain links that are unique to the recipient. Thank you!