Time for the annual update on Medicare’s fee schedule! Please see below for a full briefing on the legislation currently in Congress regarding a permanent solution to the flawed SGR formula that is currently on the books for adjusting the Medicare fee schedule. Under the SGR formula, physician payments were scheduled to be cut by 20.1% for 2014. Instead of the 20.1% cut, there will be a temporary .5% increase, at least until March 31, 2014.
According to the Healthcare Billing & Management Association: “Because it will take time to negotiate a final fix, the House and Senate have both approved legislation adopting a 3-month SGR patch. This patch will prevent the SGR related cut in provider payments from occurring on January 1, 2014 and it would also provide a .5% increase in the Conversion Factor. The President has said he will sign this legislation.”
Any good news we can get… we’ll take!
