House approves 17th temporary patch to Medicare SGR formula

A looming 24% cut to physician Medicare payments was averted Thursday when the US House of Representatives approved legislation providing another 1-year temporary patch, but not a more permanent fix, to Medicare’s sustainable growth rate formula.

Hopes for a more permanent solution were raised in February, when House and Senate negotiators reached a 5-year deal to provide physicians with a 0.5% annual increase in Medicare reimbursements, leading to optimism for a longer-term “doc fix.” Congress faced a March 31 deadline that would have triggered large reductions to physician reimbursements.

The Protecting Access to Medicare Act is Congress’ 17th temporary Medicare patch and the American Medical Association said this week that it means “bipartisan legislative policy to repeal Medicare’s failed sustainable growth rate formula (SGR) could be cast aside.”

“By extending the Medicare provider sequester and ‘cherry picking’ a number of cost savings provisions included in the bipartisan, bicameral framework, the Protecting Access to Medicare Act actually undermines future passage of the permanent repeal framework,” AMA President Ardis Dee Hoven, MD, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Further, it would perpetuate the program instability that now impedes the development and adoption of health care delivery and payment innovation that can improve health care and strengthen the Medicare program,” Hoven said. “Full repeal of the SGR is the answer to strengthening the Medicare program, not another patch.”

Efforts to eliminate Medicare’s SGR hit a political speed bump earlier this month when the Republican-controlled House approved a measure that included provisions to delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

The Congressional Budget Office had estimated that the bicameral SGR bill would increase direct spending by about $138 billion over 10 years.