Act Now to Stop Medicare Cuts:
Physicians Urged to Contact Lawmakers in
District Offices During Congress’s Summer Recess
[Posted 07/28/05]

CMA encourages physicians to contact their federal lawmakers and urge them to sign on as cosponsors of two bills that would stave off the looming Medicare payment cuts. Personal contact with lawmakers makes a big difference in how they vote. U.S. Senators and Representatives will be in their home districts for the congressional recess, August 1 through September 2.

“According to CMA’s recent survey, 60 percent of California physicians will be unable to accept new Medicare patients if rates are cut,” says CMA CEO Jack Lewin, M.D. “Congress must act now to stop the cuts or California seniors will not be able to get care when they need it.”

If Congress fails to act before the end of the year, physicians’ rates will be cut 4.3 percent this January 1. In just six years, the cut will total 26 percent. The cuts are an unintended consequence of a Medicare formula created by Congress that was supposed to establish a “sustainable growth rate” for spending on doctors’ services. The formula allows Medicare spending on physician services to grow at the rate of the gross domestic product (GDP), but it actually penalizes physicians because the cost of physician services rises more rapidly than the GDP.

AMA and medical societies across the country are launching grassroots efforts to change the formula, which is undermining Medicare’s promise to senior citizens that they will have access to health care no matter where they live or what their income. Physicians are encouraged to participate in the grassroots effort by calling on their federal lawmakers to support a permanent fix to the Medicare formula. [Click here for talking points.]

While the Medicare formula is a national problem, physicians and patients in California are particularly hard hit by the SGR formula. “California physicians are already paid some of the lowest rates in the nation by both Medicare and private payors. It has forced California physicians to leave medicine, retire early, or move to another state,” says CMA president Michael Sexton, M.D. “We cannot sustain further Medicare reductions and still see our patients.”

The House and Senate are both considering bills—both called the Preserving Patient Access to Physicians Act of 2005—that would provide a physician payment increase for 2006 of at least 2.7 percent, as recommended by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). The Senate bill (S. 1081) would add an estimated 2.6 percent increase in 2007.

The House bill (H.R. 2356) would provide a permanent fix to the Medicare payment formula, calculating physician rates in 2007 and beyond with a new formula based on the Medicare Economic Index (which measures physician practice cost inflation).

Find your lawmakers’ contact information:
[SENATE]   [HOUSE OF REPRESENATIVES]

Contact: Elizabeth McNeil, 415/882-3376 or emcneil@cmanet.org.