House & Senate Pass Two Month Physician Fix

The House and Senate today gave final approval to a two-month extension of the Social Security (SS) payroll tax holiday and emergency unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, along with a two-month extension of the current Medicare physician payment rates, thereby preventing a 27.4% cut to Medicare physician payments that was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The bill also includes extensions of the so-called health care “extenders” due to expire this year for an additional two months. The president signed the bill into law.