Lawmakers likely to delay Medicare doc fix until after election
Lawmakers are likely to delay considering a physician Medicare pay fix until after the November election, according to a recently published report.
The House Ways and Means Committee has opted to postpone a markup of this and other healthcare bills, Axios noted citing anonymous sources. Scheduling conflicts and “lingering disagreements” over legislative language are delaying reviews of the doc fix, along with a radiologist-supported bill to modify the No Surprises Act.
“We were going to have a healthcare markup. There were a couple of bills in there that everybody wasn't quite on board with…so we're not going to do a markup next week,” Rep. Greg Murphy, MD, R-N.C. told Axios in a report published Sept. 19. “I think we're going to have a policy hour, kind of hash out some of the things, maybe take a bill out, maybe try to reform the bill and then move forward," he added. "The [Ways and Means] chairman and I…think that's a better way to proceed."
With physicians slated to face a 2.8% cut to the conversion factor in 2025, Congress is still expected to review potential remedies following the Nov. 5 election. The American College of Radiology and others are pressing for an annual, inflation-based adjustment to physician pay to address the rising cost of running a practice. Read more:
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.