Senate Raises Physician Medicare Pay by 2.2 Percent, but House Still Must Approve

On June 18 the U.S. Senate passed legislation that provides a 2.2 percent Medicare physician payment update for six months, from June 1 through Nov. 30, replacing the 21 percent payment cut that went into effect on June 1. Because the House of Representatives will not vote on the legislation until the week of June 21, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which had extended its hold on Medicare claims processing several times to allow Congress to consider legislation that would address cut, instructed its contractors to begin processing claims on June 18 with the 21 percent reduction. The new Senate legislation — H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010 — does not address the sustainable growth rate formula, which is widely considered by physicians’ groups to be at the root of the ongoing problems with Medicare physician payment. The SGR formula sets the expenditure target for physicians by linking it to the U.S. gross domestic product.

Read more on the Medicare physician payment cut and the SGR in Frontlines.