Physician advocacy groups are blasting the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s call to forgo a physician services payment update in 2023.
MedPAC issued its latest report to Congress on Tuesday, noting that beneficiaries have “good” access to care with a growing supply of clinicians. Private insurance payment rates continue to be higher than Medicare, the advisory group noted, while overall doc compensation is on the rise.
“The commission’s analyses suggest that, in aggregate, Medicare’s payments for clinician services are adequate,” MedPAC reported March 15. “Although clinicians have experienced declines in their Medicare service volume and revenue due to the pandemic, the Congress has provided tens of billions of dollars in relief funds to clinicians during the [public health emergency], and we expect volume and revenue to rebound to pre-pandemic levels (or higher) by 2023.”
Physician groups were quick to slam the recommendation Tuesday. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) said it was “deeply troubled” by the report while noting that physicians are fighting through the highest annual inflation rate in 40 years. After a brief pause, Medicare sequester cuts are set to resume April 1 at a time practices are “still reeling from pandemic related disruptions, rampant staffing shortages and skyrocketing expenses.”
“As MGMA has continued to warn, without a modest annual payment update to keep up with the cost of inflation, physician practices will inevitably be forced to make difficult decisions about their Medicare participation—decisions that would certainly result in diminished access to the critical healthcare services on which beneficiaries rely,” said Anders Gilberg senior VP of government affairs for the association, which represents more than 15,000 physician groups across radiology and other specialties.
The American Medical Association (AMA) similarly criticized the report, noting that there was a $13.9 billion decrease in Medicare physician fee schedule spending in 2020 as patients delayed treatments. Adjusted for inflation, doc pay in the program fell 20% over the past two decades and that does not account for the recent inflationary spike, AMA said.
“It is urgent that Congress work with the physician community to develop solutions to the systematic problems with the Medicare physician payment system and preserve patient access to care,” AMA CEO James Madara, MD, wrote in a March 15 letter to leaders of Congress.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.