Congress passed a continuing resolution Thursday to avert a government shutdown but failed to include a provision to protect radiologists and other physicians from a Medicare pay cut.
The U.S. Senate voted 77-18 to approve the bill with the House following in a 314-108 decision. Members of the GOP Doctors Caucus came close to getting a “doc fix” included in the CR but it never made it across the finish line, Inside Health Policy reported, citing unnamed sources.
Physician advocacy groups criticized the decision while holding out hope that Congress could remedy the nearly 3.4% cut to the conversion factor at some future point.
“Failure to reverse these cuts will create access issues for patients and small, independent physician practices, especially those in rural and underserved areas,” American Medical Association President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, said in a Jan. 18 statement. “Yet, we recognize that Congress’ work is far from done and urge lawmakers to reverse these cuts at the soonest opportunity.”
“Congress must ameliorate these cuts so that Medicare beneficiaries will not lose access to healthcare,” added Radiology Business Management Association Executive Director Bob Still.
Rep. Greg Murphy, MD, R-N.C. had pushed to include his Preserving Seniors' Access to Physicians Act in the continuing resolution. The bipartisan bill would counteract the Medicare conversion factor cut, zeroing out any decrease but not increasing physician pay. He issued a brief statement Thursday, accusing Senate democrats of blocking the bill.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.