Members of Congress seek to stabilize radiologist pay in Medicare program
Bipartisan members of Congress recently introduced legislation aimed at stabilizing pay for radiologists and other physicians under the Medicare program.
Senators on July 30 announced the introduction of the Provider Reimbursement Stability Act, with a companion bill also unveiled in the U.S. House. Lawmakers note that, when adjusting for inflation, physicians’ Medicare pay has fallen approximately 33% since 2001.
“The legislation would reduce steep year-to-year payment swings driven by budget neutrality requirements and more accurately account for practice expense changes,” the American College of Radiology said in an Aug. 6 news update, voicing its support for the bill.
A broad coalition of doc groups also has endorsed the measure, including the American Medical Association, American Society for Radiation Oncology and many others. The bill seeks to stabilize pay by increasing the budget neutrality threshold from $20 million to $57.64 million. It also would index this threshold to the Medicare Economic Index, a measure of inflation, every five years to address “rising practice costs.
Additionally, the bill would revise spending estimates and budget neutrality adjustments based on healthcare utilization rates, derived from medical claims data. Plus, it would provide updates to direct costs used to calculate practice expense RVUs, including clinical wage rates and medical equipment, at least every five years. Finally, the bill would limit year-to-year variances in the conversion factor to no greater than 2.5%. This comes after CMS recently unveiled the 2027 doc fee schedule, which includes a 1.68% cut to the conversion factor.
The Provider Reimbursement Stability Act is co-sponsored by Sens. John Boozman, R-Ark., Peter Welch, D-Vt., Roger Marshall, MD, R-Kan., Angus King, I-Maine, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., in the Senate. Rep. Greg Murphy, MD, R-N.C., and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are co-sponsoring the House version.
“Outdated policies are creating instability for doctors and threatening access to care for Medicare patients in Vermont and across the country,” Sen. Welch said in a statement July 30. “Our commonsense, bipartisan bill will help ensure physicians can continue providing vital care to our communities.”
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.