Urge your members of Congress to support letter on physician payment update
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) Proposed Rule that includes yet another 2.8% cut to physician Medicare payments on Jan. 1, 2025.
If Congress does not act before the end of the year, this planned cut will mark the fifth consecutive year that CMS included a cut to physician payments within the MPFS. Failure to stop these cuts threatens Medicare beneficiary access to physicians and other health care providers treating patients in the out-patient setting.
According to recent data, physician Medicare payment rates have fallen 29% over the last two decades (PDF) when adjusted for inflation, all while the cost of running a practice continues to rise. In fact, the 2025 MPFS proposed rule highlights that the cost of running a practice, as measured by the Medicare Economic Index (e.g., expenses associated with paying rent, compensating clinical and administrative staff, and purchasing supplies and equipment) is estimated to increase by 3.6%.
Recently, Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks, MD (R-IA) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), along with a bipartisan group of physician members of Congress, circulated a "Dear Colleague" letter urging House leadership to take immediate action to not only stop the 2.8% cut, but also provide physicians with a much-needed payment update that reflects the inflationary pressure they are facing running a medical practice.
Please contact your members of Congress and urge them to sign the Miller-Meeks/Panetta “Dear Colleague” today. The deadline for co-signers is Sept. 27.
It is clear that the current path is unsustainable—another round of cuts combined with ever-rising inflationary costs and a long history of insufficient Medicare payments will endanger both physician practices and the patients they serve.
120+ health care organizations call for Medicare physician payment reform
In a recent sign-on letter (PDF), the AMA joined 120+ organizations representing more than one million health care providers and their patients in calling on Congress to take action to address the unsustainable Medicare physician payment system.
“The MPFS is the only payment system within Medicare lacking an annual inflationary update, even though clinicians—many of whom are small business owners— contend with a wide range of shifting economic factors, such as increasing administrative burdens, staff salaries, building rent, and purchase of essential technology when determining their ability to provide care to Medicare patients,” says the letter. “The absence of an annual inflationary update, combined with statutory budget neutrality requirements, further compounds the difficulties our members face in managing resources to continue caring for patients in their communities.”
The letter specifically mentions three pieces of bipartisan legislation that have been introduced in Congress to address systemic flaws to the Medicare physician payment system, all of which the AMA has advocated in support of:
The Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act (H.R. 2474) (PDF), which would enact an annual, permanent inflationary payment update in Medicare that is tied to the Medicare Economic Index (MEI)
The Physician Fee Stabilization Act (S. 4935) (PDF), which would increase the budget neutrality threshold under the MPFS and provide regular indexing to the MEI
The Provider Reimbursement Stability Act (H.R. 6371) (PDF), which would build upon the provisions in S. 4935 through its inclusion of additional key components to reform budget neutrality laws
Fix Medicare Now campaign ramped up during August recess
As part of the ongoing Fix Medicare Now campaign the AMA conducted a robust slate of August recess activities to encourage physicians and patients to engage with their members of Congress while they were back in their districts.
To kick off the recess activities the AMA hosted a webinar on Aug. 1. The webinar described the current state of federal legislation and outlined ways physician advocates could engage their members of Congress during the month of August and beyond. As part of the August recess, the AMA also announced an updated Fix Medicare Now Advocacy Hub—a one-stop-shop for all the tools and resources to support physicians in their recess advocacy efforts. These updated resources included the 2024 August Recess Engagement Toolkit (PDF), the FMN Social Media Toolkit (PDF) and revised AMA Medicare physician payment issue briefs and infographics.
During the August recess, physician and patient advocates from across the country sent almost 45,000 emails to Congress urging their legislators to Fix Medicare Now.
More articles in this issue
- Sept. 20, 2024: National Advocacy Update
- Sept. 20, 2024: State Advocacy Update
- Sept. 20, 2024: Advocacy Update other news
