Medicare Payment Cuts

Once again, Medicare is proposing to cut physician fees. This time the plan is a draconian 27% reduction in fees on January 1, 2012. The only alternative plan on the table now is to freeze primary care physicians (us) at the current fee schedule for 10 years and reduce specialists by 17% over the next three years and then freeze them for the next seven. Many physicians have already announced that they will no longer accept new Medicare patients and some have announced plans to withdraw from Medicare entirely! The Mayo Clinic, which President Obama cites as the shining example of efficient, cost-effective care, has reported that they lost $846 million on Medicare patients in 2010 and has announced that they are phasing out of Medicare, beginning with one of their Arizona sites. We do not want to do this. But we need your help. Read on.

Over the last 11 years, the Medicare fees have either remained unchanged, or increased by 1% or less each year. IN 2002 there was a 4.5% decrease. Overall, over the last decade, physicians have seen significant reductions in our fees when inflation is factored in to the calculation. This can not continue! Freezing our fees at the current level amounts to at least a 30% pay cut when assuming a stable inflation rate.

Medicare fees are the basis on which most other insurance companies set their rates. If Medicare cuts their fees, the commercial insurers are likely to follow suit. This would be devastating to the ability of physicians, especially primary care physicians like us, to continue to care for ALL patients, though the impact would first be felt by Medicare patients.

What Can You Do? Whatever your feelings about the Health Care Reform bill passed last year, we ask that you contact your federal elected officials and urge them to protect your ability to access affordable care by assuring that we are paid adequately for the service we provide. You can do this with a single email from the AMA website. Simply fill in your zip code under Elected Officials and click GO. (If your zip code is split across congressional districts, you will be able to enter your zip+4 or your address on the next page to find your congress(wo)man.) You can create an email to your representative, your senators, and President Obama with a single click. Please ask them to repeal the SGR (the formula that results in the planned fee cuts each year), to support medical liability reform (which would cut the cost of care for all of us) and to support S.1042 and HR.1700 (these identical bills, the Medicare Patient Empowerment Act, would allow you to use your Medicare benefits to see out-of-Medicare physicians (in case we have to quit) and to privately contract with physicians). You can also review your representatives' track record on bills relevant to patients and physicians.

If you would like to contact your representatives individually, use the chart below: