VIDEO: Blaser says Congress may be ready to start work on physician payment reform
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Key takeaways:
- Medicare cut payments to physicians by 3.37% in 2024, but Congress interceded by reducing the amount by 2%.
- Congress and physician groups are starting work on legislation aimed at payment reform.
Members of Congress may be ready to start work on legislation to change how Medicare pays physicians – and avoid a last-minute yearly ritual of trying to offset cuts issued by CMS, according to Robert Blaser.
“The mood in Congress is much more welcoming to making a long-term fix [to physician payment] because I believe Congress is getting tired of having to fix this every year,” Blaser, director of public policy for the Renal Physicians Association, told Healio.
Nephrologists and other specialists were facing a 3.37% cut in Medicare payment rates for 2024 after CMS issued its final rule in November 2023. Congress interceded in March by adding a provision to the Consolidated Appropriations Act that raised the Medicare conversion factor by 1.68%.
“We got some of that [2%] back” based on the intercession by Congress, Blaser told Healio.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommended a pay increase for physicians in its March report based on the Medicare Economic Index, “but recommended only half the index be provided, which would be about 2.3%,” Blaser told Healio.
Blaser said the RPA and other nephrology groups are ready to support congressional alternatives to the current process.
“[The RPA] will be lobbying hard on it this summer – more to come,” Blaser said.
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