Doctor Medicare pay faces cut next year

The AMA suggests that the government adjust the way it calculates some figures to make the pay formula fairer.

By Markian Hawryluk, AMNews staff. Sept. 17, 2001.

Physicians could face cuts in Medicare payments of 2% to 3% in 2002 if current estimates of economic data hold true, raising the issue of access to quality services for Medicare beneficiaries.

A drop in Medicare payments would not sit well with doctors, who are already frustrated by the paperwork required by the program said AMA President-elect Yank Coble, MD.

"This would be very discouraging to physicians because they're so well aware of the increased regulatory factors that have not only increased their cost of caring for patients ... but also decreased their productivity," Dr. Coble said. "So it would be a very disheartening thing for them. Unfortunately, it's going to affect the way services are delivered."

Payments under the physician fee schedule are updated each year to account for the increased cost of providing health care services. In March, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued an initial estimate of next year's physician payment update of -0.1%, based on preliminary data. As CMS prepares to issue the actual update, analysis of the latest economic data suggest that the payment could be several percentage points lower.

Alan Nelson, MD, an internist-endocrinologist who serves on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, said that kind of a cut could have a profound impact on physicians and beneficiaries.

"At this point, when physicians are already accepting discounted payments for Medicare patients in many parts of the country, if not most, to have an update that not only fails to meet inflation but even rolls back the payment, I have real concerns about what the potential impact of that would be on access." [...]