Battle looming over Senate's 1% Medicare payment boost

The AMA hopes to get the proposed Medicare raise increased in conference committee negotiations between the House and the Senate.

By David Glendinning, AMNews staff. Nov. 21, 2005.

Washington -- Congress moved one step closer to giving doctors another one-year Medicare payment fix, but physicians are not out of the woods yet.

The Senate recently passed its version of a budget reconciliation bill that contains a 1% pay increase for 2006. At press time, the House was moving toward passage of its own deficit-reduction measure, which does not address physician reimbursement. Without congressional action, the Medicare payment formula would result in a 4.4% cut for doctors next year, as confirmed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services payment rule issued Nov. 2.

Upon House passage of its measure, both chambers will start conference committee negotiations to reconcile the two versions of the bill. It is during this process that the American Medical Association hopes to get the Senate's 1% update boosted to a figure closer to next year's projected 2.6% increase in practice costs.

Providing yet another temporary reimbursement raise that doesn't keep pace with rising practice costs makes long-term Medicare payment reforms more politically difficult and expensive in future years, said AMA President J. Edward Hill, MD.

"We certainly are looking forward to the conference committee to see if we can improve that payment issue," he said. "But we still want elimination of this formula. Every time they give you a little increase in your payment temporarily, they kick that can down the road further and it's more expensive the next year."