MMA Joins Organizations Demanding Congress Adopt Medicare Physician Payment Reform

November 2, 2023

The MMA joined the AMA and more than 120 other national medical organizations and state medical societies in support of a U.S. House of Representative’s proposal to reform the budget-neutrality policies that have been affecting Medicare physician payment levels in recent years. 

“As one of the few Medicare providers without a payment update tied to inflation, physicians have watched inflation-adjusted payments decline 26% from 2001 to 2023,” stated the letter addressed to Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), Rep. Greg Murphy (R-North Carolina) and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who are supporting legislation to reform Medicare physician payment. “Physician payments are further eroded by frequent and large payment redistributions caused by statutory mandates for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to make refinements to fee schedule service valuations and coding policies subject to budget neutrality.” 

The legislation aims to:  

• allow the Medicare conversion factor to be re-adjusted as appropriate, while simultaneously plugging this “leak” in the Medicare physician payment pool 

• update the spending threshold that spurs the need to apply a budget neutrality adjustment 

• limit positive or negative budget neutrality adjustments to the conversion factor to 2.5% each year, which will provide greater stability for the Medicare physician payment system by removing relatively large and abrupt changes in conversion factor calculations. 

“Once again Congress is waiting until the very end to fix the Medicare physician payment system,” said Laurel Ries, MD, MMA president. “This has to stop. Physicians and our patients need a reliable, and sustainable payment system that will stop this annual game playing.” 

Read the entire letter here.