Lawmakers Reach a Tentative Agreement on Doc-Pay Fix

House and Senate Conferees reached a tentative agreement to prevent a 27.4% cut in Medicare physician payment rates, extending the current rates until the end of the year.  The proposal also includes extensions to several of the Medicare “extenders” set to expire.

While hospitals supported eliminating the scheduled reduction in Medicare payments to physicians, we strongly opposed offsetting those reductions by reducing payments to hospitals.  Unfortunately, the deal proposes $11.6 billion in cuts to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act including $4 billion in Medicaid spending reductions.  Additional savings would come from reductions to Medicare bad debt and clinical laboratory payments totaling $9.6 billion.

The current extension expires February 29, 2012, so Congress must move quickly on this measure.  A multitude of communications were sent to the South Carolina congressional delegation opposing hospital cuts.