The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has recommended a pay update for radiologists and other physicians in 2025, but some in the field worry it’s far from enough.
MedPAC issued its latest report to Congress on the federal payment program Friday. It calls for a “higher than current law,” year-over-year pay change for docs, at about 1.3%. Commissioners estimated the average physician would receive 3% higher Medicare payments next year following the update.
“Under current law, Medicare fee schedule payment rates are expected to decline in 2025, due to the expiration of a 1.25% pay increase that will apply in 2024 only and a 0% update scheduled for 2025,” the report stated. “Given recent high inflation, cost increases could be difficult for clinicians to continue to absorb. Yet current payments to clinicians appear to be adequate, based on many of our indicators.”
Provider groups criticized the suggestion Friday. The Medical Group Management Association implored Congress to pass legislation providing an annual inflation-based update tied to the full Medicare Economic Index (a measure of inflation), rather than half of it, as MedPAC recommended.
"On the heels of Congress allowing a 1.69% cut to Medicare physician reimbursement to stand for the remainder of 2024, today’s MedPAC recommendation to provide a 50% inflationary update for physician services in 2025 is woefully inadequate,” said Anders Gilberg senior VP of government affairs for MGMA, which represents 15,000 group practices across radiology and other specialties. “I am mystified why MedPAC even bothers to make an annual recommendation while it ignores the significant Medicare cuts to physicians in 2024 and recent years. Medical practices continue to suffer from staffing shortages and cost increases across the board.”
The Radiology Business Management Association echoed MGMA’s concerns Friday. MedPAC recommendations are only advisory, and the association noted that Congress has ignored the commission many times in the past.
“The fact is, MedPAC recommended an inflationary update for the current fee schedule, and physicians were instead delivered yet another reimbursement cut,” RBMA President Kit Crancer told Radiology Business. “Until Congress passes comprehensive reform to stabilize physician payment and patient access to care, we’re going to be stuck in this untenable cycle of declining reimbursement.”
The American Medical Association has long championed inflation-based updates for physicians and praised MedPAC for making this suggestion. However, granting only half of the MEI would cause provider payments to “fall even further behind increases in the cost of providing care.”
“As one of the only Medicare providers without an inflationary payment update, physicians have waited a long time for this change,” AMA President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, said in a statement.
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.