The American College of Radiology and Society of Interventional Radiology are among 120 professional associations voicing their support for a proposed fix to address flagging Medicare pay rates.
Providing physicians with an annual pay update tied to inflation is “essential” to helping practices navigate ongoing instability in the healthcare market. ACR et al. commended physician lawmakers for introducing the Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act earlier this month and hope it will end the ongoing need to lobby Congress for relief.
“The annual ‘stop the Medicare payment cut’ exercises are due, in no small part, to the fact that physician services do not receive the annual inflationary update that virtually all other Medicare providers can rely on to better weather periods of fiscal uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic further illustrated the challenges physicians endure due to the current broken Medicare payment system,” the groups wrote in an April 19 letter to the sponsors of House Resolution 2474. “Organized medicine is united in support of a long-term payment solution that centers on annual inflationary updates,” they added later.
Physicians also thanked Congress for providing partial patches to address this systemic problem through 2024. However, the annual exercise of fighting for them and uncertainty around if they’ll happen serves as distraction that exacerbates budgeting challenges for practices while diverting resources from Congress and physicians.
The American Medical Association announced the letter in a Thursday news update. It noted that, when adjusting for inflation, physician payments have dropped 26% since 2001, including a 2% pay cut in 2023.
“Increasingly thin operating margins disproportionately affect small, independent, and rural physician practices, as well as those treating low-income or other historically minoritized or marginalized patient communities,” the AMA said.
Others signing the letter included the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, the Medical Group Management Association, the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography and the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology.
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.