MMA Urges Congress to Act to Stop Systemic Medicare Payment Cuts

August 11, 2022

The MMA is once again urging Congress to take action before the end of the year to reform the Medicare payment system and stop the cycle of constant physician payment cuts.  

In 2021, physicians rallied to convince Congress to stop a scheduled 9.75 percent cut to physician payments. Yet, the payment formula in Medicare still does not keep up with medical inflation.  

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed a rule related to physician payments that expands payments for behavioral health services but provides a 0% payment update and reduces the Medicare conversion factor by 4.5%. This, combined with the sunset of the temporary 3% payment increase adopted by Congress, will result in most physicians seeing their Medicare payment amount decrease this year.   

“It is time for Congress to act to stop this annual cycle of threatened cuts that are delayed in last-minute Congressional actions,” said MMA President Randy Rice, MD.  “Congress needs to pass a long-term solution to the systemic problems that are in the current Medicare physician payment formula and provide the stability needed for physician practices.” 

The MMA is working with the AMA to: 

• extend the Congressionally enacted 3% temporary increase to avoid cuts caused by the “budget neutrality” requirements 

• replace the current formula with one that provides inflation-based updates for at least the next two years, and  

• waive requirements referred to as “PAYGO” that result in cuts to payments caused when new, unrelated expansions are added. 

“These cuts can be stopped by Congress, but they need to hear from physicians,” Rice said. “They need to hear that another round of Medicare cuts will effect the patients that we serve.” 

Contact your Congress members by clicking here and sending them a personal email encouraging them to act now.