Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius chatted recently with MedPage Today about President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget and the provisions of interest to physicians. As Jack wrote last week, the proposed budget contains enough funding to freeze physician payment under the sustainable growth rate at current 2011 levels for two years. While this certainly is an improvement over having to fight off the massive draconian cuts that the SGR full enactment would entail every year (or every few months, as has happened the last couple of times), this is hardly the permanent fix that the ACC has been pushing for. Sec. Sebelius explains what she feels is the rationale for this limited freeze: pass the 2-year freeze to “start a conversation with Congress,” and then immediately work on a permanent solution. Sebelius notes that there is nothing more important than having doctors in Medicare, and acknowledges that physicians are getting weary of going year-to-year having their pay jeopardized.

She’s right there. There have been several reports in the media of physicians dropping out of Medicare as a result of cuts present in the Physician Fee Schedule and the constant uncertainty of the SGR. However, it’s a little unclear if passing a two-year fix will actually give Congress two years to work on an innovative payment system that rewards high-quality care (what the ACC and other medical societies would like) ... or two years to avoid dealing with the massive cost this type of effort would likely require. I hope that Congress steps up to the plate to truly solve the SGR dilemma for us physicians over the next two years.

Check out the video on the KevinMD blog for Sec. Sebelius’ take on other health care issues, including health IT, the Affordable Care Act, fraud and abuse and the medical loss ratio.