Just ahead of the Oct. 14 deadline for Congressional recommendations to the Super Committee regarding Medicare cuts, the sustainable growth rate (SGR) battle has really heated up. Last week, after 10 years of Congress “kicking the can down the road” by implementing a series of short-term fixes costing $300 billion, Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) took initiative, sending a letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. In just a few short days, Rep. Schwartz’s appeal gained traction and has been signed by 113 Members of Congress. The letter calls on bipartisan Congressional action to permanently repeal the SGR and replace it with “a payment system that promotes efficiency, quality and value and ensures access to medical services for Medicare beneficiaries.”

Unfortunately, today’s Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) recommendation on the flawed SGR issue is not a viable solution. MedPAC’s proposal targets specialists who, after five years of flat payments, would face extreme cuts of 5.9 percent per year for the first three years followed by seven years of reimbursement rates freezes. Instead of addressing the shortage of primary care physicians, the Commission’s solution is to simply freeze their rates for 10 years.  

This decision is unacceptable and fails to carve out a comprehensive payment reform plan, enhance Medicare beneficiary access, or promote quality or resource stewardship. ACC believes that physicians should be paid for quality and care coordination, not their specialty designation. Additionally, the notion that doctors can make more by increasing volume ignores the significant marginal costs associated with seeing each additional patient.   

MedPAC has voted to increase physician payment by 1-2 percent for each of the last five years, despite the SGR issue.  They have abandoned their focus on what are the most appropriate payments to maintain access and to attempt to fix a Congressional mistake. 

While the ACC has long advocated for Congress to permanently repeal the SGR, we strongly oppose the MedPAC recommendation.  Joining forces with 42 other medical societies, ACC sent a letter to the Commission earlier this week stressing the consequences of penalizing specialists across the board regardless of quality of care. This approach is detrimental to the institution of cardiology and threatens the advances that we have made and are determined to make in the future. 

Visit the Budget Countdown page for related information on the issues of SGR, medical liability reform, and imaging cuts. I also urge you to take part in the ACC’s new Payment Innovations Community, in partnership with the American Journal of Managed Care. While there, don’t miss the New England Journal of Medicine article that looks at the question: “How Much Savings Can We Wring From Medicare?”