The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for April 11 to discuss Medicare payment reform for radiologists and other physicians.
Titled “Bolstering Chronic Care through Medicare Physician Payment,” the event will feature several physicians. Among them are Patricia L. Turner, MD, MBA, CEO of the American College of Surgeons, and Steven P. Furr, MD, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
The American College of Radiology praised the hearing as a potential first step to address inadequate reimbursement levels under the federal payment program.
“The ACR is pleased that the Senate Finance Committee is acknowledging the need to address concerns related to physician payment in Medicare,” Executive VP Cynthia R. Moran told Radiology Business Friday. “As it has done for the last several years, the college will continue to work with the Finance Committee and the rest of Congress to ensure physicians have the resources they need to provide the best care to our nation’s seniors.”
Others slated to testify include Melanie Matthews, CEO of Olympia-based Physicians of Southwest Washington, and Amol Navathe, MD, PhD, a University of Pennsylvania professor of health policy and medicine and MedPAC commissioner.
The hearing comes amid growing calls from physicians and members of Congress to address Medicare’s inability to keep pace with the escalating cost of care. When adjusting for inflation, Medicare pay in radiology has decreased by $2.8 billion since 2005, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology last year. Efforts to move Medicare toward value-based care have only left radiology at a disadvantage, another recent analysis found.
Responding to these concerns, a bipartisan group of senators urged Congress to address lagging physician pay rates in February. The same month, lawmakers also launched a new working group to brainstorm long-term fixes.
“As the healthcare system has evolved since the inception of the Medicare program, the physician payment system has failed to keep pace with the actual cost of care and the improvements in new services and technologies,” senators wrote in a letter earlier this year. “Despite efforts like the 2015 Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which made significant strides towards a value-based payment system, further action is needed to address reimbursement challenges and shift toward a system that aligns payment incentives with patient outcomes,” they added later.
The hearing will take place at 10 a.m. Eastern at the 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Find a livestream of the event and submit testimony here.
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.