GOVERNMENTPhysician service growth rate slows, easing Medicare premium increaseMeanwhile, beneficiaries with higher incomes will pay bigger premiums next year as the result of a 2003 law.By David Glendinning, amednews staff. Oct. 9, 2006. Washington -- Medicare beneficiaries next year will not see their premiums rise as much as originally thought now that federal officials have downgraded their projections of how much doctor care is costing the program. The standard 2007 monthly premium for Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient physician care, will increase by $5 to $93.50. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimated in July that the premium would jump by nearly $10 to $98.40. The new figure will be the smallest increase in six years. Beneficiaries will pay less because federal officials have revised the rate at which spending on physician care is increasing, said CMS Administrator Mark McClellan, MD, PhD. In particular, the growth rate for physician services in 2005 slowed compared with recent years, altering projections for the future. CMS originally thought that the amount of services that doctors were billing was spiking, but now officials have realized that doctors simply were filing claims more efficiently and receiving payments more quickly. The effect of the higher efficiency made it look to actuaries as if doctors were boosting the total level of care they were prescribing to their patients. The amount that seniors are expected to pay to receive coverage under the program is dependent in part on the amount and complexity of services that doctors provide. Because Part B premiums are calculated to cover 25% of the program's costs, any increases in physician services result in a rise in beneficiary cost sharing. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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