Members of Congress received house calls from physician leaders last month urging their U.S. senators and representatives to make repealing Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula a priority for the lame duck session.
Members of the AMA Board of Trustees, leaders of four national specialty organizations, the AMA Council on Legislation and attendees of the annual AMPAC Federation meeting conducted more than 100 meetings on Capitol Hill. Physicians asked Congress to pass H.R. 4015/S. 2000, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014, which garnered bipartisan, bicameral support earlier this year.
At the same time, the New Democrat Coalition held a briefing for its members and staff regarding the need for SGR repeal, during which the flaws of the formula and the negative impacts of perennial SGR patches were explained.
All physicians should contact their U.S. senators and representatives while Congress is on recess over the next several weeks to encourage them to repeal the SGR formula during the lame duck session. Visit the Fix Medicare Now website to access materials that can help these advocacy efforts.
