The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula that constrains the annual
update to the Medicare payment rate is projected to reduce physician
payments by 24.4% in 2014, unless Congress intervenes.
Congress—that is, the “committees of jurisdiction”—is considering
sweeping changes to the payment system, including repeal of the SGR.
The legislators agree that the SGR is a flawed and unsustainable
mechanism.
All three committees will have conducted hearings within the four-week period that began on May 7th,
when the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held
its most recent hearing to discuss how the federal government, along
with physicians, could develop new payment policy. During a hearing
before the Senate Finance Committee on May 14th, the first
such hearing in six years, Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said that it is
time “to repeal the SGR once and for all this year.” The House Energy
and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on...
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