GOVERNMENTMedicare panel: Pay physicians more in 2004Commission recommends belt-tightening for hospitals, nursing homes and home health.By Markian Hawryluk, amednews staff. Feb. 3, 2003. Washington -- A key congressional advisory committee bolstered doctors' arguments that their Medicare rates are inadequate. It recommended repeated increases in physician payments but constraints on other major practitioner groups' reimbursement. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission favors freezing 2004 Medicare payments for skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies and limiting the increase in payments to hospitals next year. The commission proposed a 2.4% increase in physician payments and said the increase should be higher if Congress does not reverse the 2003 cut. The recommendations, which will be formally presented to Congress in a March report, followed the commission's new framework for proposing Medicare updates. Under that system, the group judges the adequacy of payment levels, then estimates the change in costs that will occur. The commissioners characterized payments to hospitals as being "at least adequate" and payments to nursing homes and home health agencies as "more than adequate" to cover costs. The panel has tried to gauge the adequacy of physician payments by looking at the number of physicians participating in Medicare and reviewing surveys on the difficulty beneficiaries face making appointments. Physician participation numbers remained fairly steady through 2002, the first year physician payment was cut. Doctors have until March 1 to decide whether to renew their participation agreement for 2003. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2003 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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