Breaking news today. The House has just passed the 1-year correction to the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) issues that threaten to reduce Medicare reimbursement to physicians by 25% starting on January 1st. The President is expected to sign the measure into law by tomorrow. This is welcome news as it will avoid the type of drama we experienced in 2010 with fee cuts being threatened several times during the year which created a messy patchwork of temporary corrections.
This provision would reverse that reduction and extend current Medicare payment rates through December 31, 2011. The estimated cost of the provision is $14.9 billion over ten years. Please note this is a 12-month fix so this issue has not yet been permanently addressed and given the high price tag to "avoid a pay cut" it remains an issue that is very difficult to explain to Mainstreet USA but has gone on for far too many years (and now across two different administrations). We can only hope that Congress will do what's right and create a permanent fix next year well in advance of the December 31st 2011 deadline.
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