Urge your Congressional Representatives to Permanently Repeal the Medicare Physician Payment Formula
During the next seven years, the cost of treating Medicare patients will increase by 20 percent, while the payment for these services will be cut by 40 percent under the current Medicare SGR (Sustainable Growth Rate) formula. In the last few years, congressional interventions prevented similar reductions thanks to short-term fixes, however most of these fixes have borrowed against the formula, causing costs to continue to escalate.
The SGR formula has proven in the past that it is neither sustainable for physicians and their care team nor fair for older patients. This will continue to be the case unless Congress passes legislation implementing a new payment system that accurately reflects practice costs and rewards high quality care provided to Medicare patients.
The Heart Rhythm Society has worked to ensure that a permanent SGR fix is enacted. The Society believes that another short-term “fix” fails to address the underlying problem of the SGR payment formula. Short term fixes only postpone and increase the amount of physician pay cuts. Your call is necessary to urge those who represent you in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to protect patient access to specialty medicine.
Congress is considering the Medicare physician payment as part of the COBRA/unemployment bill. If Congress does not act, physicians face a 21.2 percent cut in Medicare payment starting March 1st. Congress must act NOW to repeal the SGR formula.
Protect Medicare patients’ access to specialty care! Contact the DC office of your Senator or Representative using the Alliance of Specialty Medicine's toll-free Grassroots Hotline at 1 (866) 899-4088. When asked for your 4-digit specialty code, enter 6969.
When you speak with your legislator, you may want to tell them:
“As a physician and constituent, I urge you to vote to permanently repeal Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula before a 21.2 percent pay cut goes into effect on March 1. I do not support another short-term fix that only postpones and increases the cuts to physicians and threatens patient access to specialty medicine. ”
