Medicare Payment Cuts Delayed Until Nov. 2010
The U.S. Senate acted on Friday to pass the so-called “doc fix”, which will prevent a 21 percent reduction in Medicare payments from taking effect – but did not act in time to spare physicians from receiving reduced payments for claims already processed for this month.
The legislation, which was extracted from H.R. 4213, was approved without a roll-call vote after leaders of both parties agreed to pull it out of the flailing legislation. The doc fix passage came after urging from medical societies such as the American Medical Association, which claimed the proposed cuts had resulted in a record number of physicians denying new Medicare patients.
Moments after the Senate acted, however, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it would begin processing claims it received for the month of June at the lower rate. The House will not be able to act on the legislation until next week, and CMS was unable to delay processing claims any longer due to regulatory mandates. Therefore, physicians who had submitted claims for June will have to re-submit claims if they want to receive the increased reimbursement.
The bill will postpone the 21 percent cuts until Nov. 30, while Congress will attempt to develop a long-time solution for cutting costs without encouraging doctors to turn away Medicare patients.
