The American Medical Association is expressing disappointment after Congress passed a bill to avoid a government shutdown without addressing looming physician pay cuts under the Medicare program.
President Joe Biden recently signed the stopgap spending bill, providing federal agencies with funding for fiscal year 2024. However, physician groups including the AMA hoped the continuing resolution would address the “looming and catastrophic” reimbursement reductions.
“Once again, physicians and their patients are being asked to swallow a bitter pill: another round of Medicare cuts,” AMA President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, said in a statement issued Nov. 16. “Without congressional action, physicians face a 3.37% payment reduction on Jan. 1, 2024—another step in a calamitous march toward shuttered physician practices and reduced patient access.”
AMA and 120 other healthcare organizations, including the American College of Radiology, recently sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate, asking them to fix the “flawed” payment system. Ehrenfeld said seniors and the physicians caring for them are “counting on Congress” to address this issue.
“If Congress does not act by the end of the year to stop this impending payment cut, many physicians will be forced to reduce available healthcare services, cut office hours, or even forgo treating Medicare patients altogether,” ACR, the AMA and others wrote on Nov. 16. “America’s physicians and their patients deserve better. The flawed Medicare physician payment system is in desperate need of fixing. We stand ready to work with House and Senate leadership on bipartisan solutions to stop these drastic payment reductions and provide stability in the Medicare program for our nation’s seniors and the physicians who care for them.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Larry Bucshon, MD, R-Ind., is reportedly hopeful that Congress will act by early next year to mitigate the cuts, Inside Health Policy noted Tuesday. If Congress doesn’t make progress by the end of 2023, the former heart surgeon will consider tackling them in January or February when continuing resolutions expire.
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.