ASA Urges Changes to CMS’s Proposals for the 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

In a formal comment letter released earlier today to  the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the American Society of Anesthesiologists put forth a series of recommendations in response to the proposed 2020 Medicare Physician Fee schedule regulation. ASA provided strong and specific feedback to CMS on many issues that are important to ASA members and the patients they serve.  In this 68-page letter, ASA urged CMS to:

• Reconsider its proposed values for somatic nerve injections
• Work with the medical community urging Congress to implement positive updates to the Medicare Conversion Factors to offset negative budget neutrality adjustments that will result from revaluation of Office/Outpatient Evaluation and Management services
• Adopt clinically appropriate policies in its proposals for coverage for opioid use disorder treatment services.
• Ensure that CMS reduces the burden placed on Eligible Clinicians and groups to report quality and improvement activities under MIPS.
• Create more transparent and meaningful feedback reports on an EC or group’s MIPS report.
• Delay the implementation of the MIPS Value Pathways proposal.

Additionally, ASA strongly believes that CMS should not finalize its ill-advised proposal that would allow nurse anesthetists to perform the preoperative assessment of anesthetic risk and pre-surgical evaluation for procedures performed in Ambulatory Surgery Centers. All ASA members are encouraged to submit a comment by September 27 to CMS on this proposal and the patient safety implications.