Medicare payment cuts loom for 2008:
Speak up now for a positive Medicare update!
Ask your Senators to repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate formula (SGR)
Anesthesiologists caring for Medicare patients face a 10 percent payment cut on Jan 1, 2008. Please ask your Senators to replace the flawed Medicare physician payment formula.
Recent legislation passed in the House includes funding to replace payment cuts with two years of 0.5 percent positive updates. However, the Senate has not yet taken any action to replace looming cuts with positive updates.
Call your Senators and tell them about how these SGR-related cuts would impact your practice and your patients. Ask them to act now for positive physician payment updates.
Let Senators hear your voice.
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Past Congresses have engaged in an annual end-of-the year scramble to avert drastic cuts in Medicare funding for physician services. Acting now will allow Congress time to address the fatally flawed Medicare physician payment formula and replace it with a mechanism that accurately reflects increases in the cost of practicing medicine.
With each passing year of flat—or negative—updates, Congress is creating an untenable situation in which physicians are forced to move away from areas of the country with high Medicare populations. Congress must reject short-sighted “patches” and instead create a new payment system that reflects increases in practice costs and other medical inflation variables.
Many Senators understand the access problems that will result if the physician cuts are not replaced with positive updates. But they need to hear from you.