House Passes SGR Fix to prevent huge cut for physicians; Will Senate follow or do a temporary fix?

On November 19, the House voted to approve H.R. 3961 , The Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009, by a vote of 243 to 183. Only 1 Republican member voted in favor of the bill. The legislation did not contain any off-sets of the bill's estimated $210 billion cost. The bill would restructure the SGR formula on a long-term basis beginning in 2011, and would provide two separate updates, one for evaluation, management and preventive services and another for other services.

Immediately prior to the vote on H.R. 3961 the House rejected by a vote of 177 to 252 a Republican Motion to Recommit that included and alternative SGR fix, which would have would have provided physicians with a 2% Medicare payment rate increase in each of the next 4 years.

The bill will now be sent to the Senate, where it is unlikely to be taken up due to the opposition to the fact that the cost of the legislation is not off-set. H.R. 3961 is a priority for the White House as a critical piece of the overall healthcare reforms, and it is still expected that the Congress will approve legislation to at least delay the 21.2% cut to the Medicare Physician fee schedule prior to the end of the year regardless of whether they pass a health care reform bill.

The SGR issue an unfortunate distraction and is often mis-represented and mis-understood by the media. We must all urge Congress to do the right thing and fix this technical error that each year threatens physician reimbursement for Medicare patients.