Each year since 2002, Congress has staved off planned cuts based on the SGR, but the deferred cuts still accumulated, rising to 21.2 percent in cuts planned for next year.
But the new bill, HR 3961, would eliminate accumulated SGR cuts and temporarily replace the SGR with another formula based on the Medicare Economic Index, which tracks rises in the costs of physician practices.
Under the bill, physicians would get a 1.2 percent raise in 2010, and in succeeding years the payment formula would revert to growth in GDP, plus an increase of 1-2 percent, depending on the physician service.
Evaluation and management services and preventive care, the bailiwick of primary care physicians, would receive GDP plus 2 percent, while all other physician services receive GDP plus 1 percent.
In October, the U.S. Senate rejected anther method to replace the SGR, but physicians groups are asking the Senate to reconsider the issue.
“The AMA urges the Senate to act quickly before the cut begins on Jan. 1,” AMA President J. James Rohack, MD, stated. “Fixing the Medicare physician payment formula once and for all is an essential element of comprehensive health reform.”
Read Medscape’s report on fixing the sustainable growth formula.
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