“Every time I put my line in the water I said a Hail Mary, and every time I said a Hail Mary I caught a fish.” Fredo Corleone
To use a pop culture metaphor, if IPAB is Michael, MedPac is Fredo.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (aka – MedPac, the body that advises Congress on Medicare payment policy) is proposing to fix the Sustainable Growth Rate by sharing the cost of repealing the SGR among physicians, other health professionals, providers in other sectors and beneficiaries.
MedPAC’s draft plan suggests instituting a 10-year payment rate freeze for primary care physicians and three years of reduced payments at 5.9 percent each for specialists followed by a seven-year payment freeze. It also recommends offsets totaling about $235 billion. Those offsets would come from cuts to Medicare Part D drug plans (32 percent); post-acute care facilities (21 percent); Medicare benefits to seniors (14 percent); hospitals (11 percent); laboratories (9 percent); durable medical equipment (6 percent); Medicare Advantage (5 percent).
Not surprisingly, physicians are none too thrilled about the proposed cuts and freezes to their payment rates. In a statement, the American College of Surgeons said that, “The recommendations do not value the role all physicians have in the continuum of care and would have a devastating impact on access to surgical care.”
It certainly took long enough the physician community to stand up and speak out for patient care. Too bad it took the harsh realities of the bottom line to do it.
