VIDEO: MedPAC recommendations would balance Medicare budget ‘on the backs of physicians’
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Recent recommendations from MedPAC regarding Medicare Part B physician reimbursements will “do nothing to address the root cause” of high drug prices, according to Madelaine A. Feldman, MD, FACR.
“If practices are left underwater, there may be no choice but to stop offering some infusions to Medicare beneficiaries, or, worst-case scenario, shut down altogether,” Feldman, who is vice president of advocacy and government affairs at the Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations, as well as the founder and past president of the Rheumatology Alliance of Louisiana, told Healio in a video.
The recommendations from MedPAC aim to “balance the Medicare budget on the backs of physicians,” she added.
In its June 2023 report to Congress, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission — or MedPAC — recommended that legislators maintain a 6% add-on payment for the lowest-cost drugs, reduce the add-on payment for mid-to-high-level drugs, and add a payment cap for the costliest drugs. According to the American College of Rheumatologists, these recommendations, if adopted, would constitute “yet another” cut to physician reimbursement for infusions.
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Healio interview
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