Medicare Physician Pay Cuts Loom

Medical societies urge use of other funding sources to avoid imminent cuts.

Our Take: Cuts to the level of physician pay for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries are, once again, looming in the near future. Each time the issue has arisen, efforts by Congress, to avoid the cuts have been aggressively undertaken. However, with each delay, the potential cut has grown. Presently that rate cut would be 27.4%, effective on March 1.  The push has been to repeal the sustainable growth rate formula (SGR) which is driving the rate cut. While there's been a repeated effort to do just that, it's not been accomplished to date. In this Medscape article, read more about strategies proposed by organized medical groups to address the pay cut. The  New York Times also explores the topic.