The Congressional Budget Office has reduced the estimated cost of a House bill that aims to repeal and replace Medicare's sustainable growth rate from about $175 billion to $153.2 billion from 2014 to 2023.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved the bill this past summer. The bill would get rid of the SGR — the formula Medicare uses to determine physician reimbursement rates — as of next year, and physicians would receive a 0.5 percent increase in Medicare reimbursements every year until 2018, after which they would receive payments based on quality reporting and outcomes. Starting in 2019, physicians could gain or lose 1 percent of their Medicare payments, depending on their quality scores.
Every year since 2003, Congress has temporarily bypassed the SGR so physicians would not have to endure double-digit cuts to their Medicare pay.
The revision results from CMS' release last week of its final rule on Medicare's physician fee schedule, under which physicians will see an expected 20.1 percent reduction in Medicare payments. In the proposed rule, CMS said physician payments would have to be slashed 24.4 percent to make up for previous overrides of the SGR. However, that percentage decreased slightly due to physician pay adjustments the agency calculated for this year.
More Articles on Medicare Physician Payments:
AMA to Congress: Repeal Medicare SGR by End of Year
Congressional Leaders Propose Medicare Physician Payment Fix
CBO: Bill Repealing Medicare SGR Would Cost $175B