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Senate fails to vote on Sustainable Growth Rate repeal amid cost, scope-of-law concerns
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The U.S. Senate failed to vote today on a bipartisan bill that would repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate, a key factor in annual Medicare physician payment updates.
The Senate was expected to vote upon returning from a 2-week spring break. The House passed a similar measure on March 26, just before the break, by a vote of 392 to 37.
The CMS is holding physician payments through Wednesday to give the Senate time to avert a 21% payment cut that took effect April 1. The cut stems partly stems from the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) bill.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D, CA) expressed a desire for amendments to the bill that would extend the Children’s
Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by 4 years, instead of 2 years as specified in the House bill, eliminate abortion funding restrictions and remove Medicare therapy caps.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R, AL) and other Republicans have voiced opposition to the bill because of costs that are not accounted for, according to a published news report.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, UT) has voiced support for the bill, the report said.
The bill, introduced in the House and Senate on March 19, ensures a 0.5% annual physician payment update through 2019. The new payment structure takes effect in 2019. It also creates a Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MPIS) and preserves and extends the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through 2017.
The SGR, implemented in 1997 to control physician spending, tied physician payment updates to the relationship between overall fee schedule spending and growth in the gross domestic product.
Since 2003, Congress has enacted a series of 17 short-term patches totaling almost $170 billion to forestall significant cuts in Medicare reimbursement partly stemming from the SGR. – by Matt Hasson