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Título: House Passes SGR Repeal Bill; Action Moves to the Senate
Fecha: 26-03-2015
WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted 392-37 Thursday to permanently repeal the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for Medicare physician reimbursement, putting the bill's fate in the hands of the Senate.
The vote came after years of negotiations to get rid of the much-maligned formula, in which Medicare physician reimbursements were linked to increases in the gross domestic product; the formula invariably resulted in payment cuts for physicians. The cuts were staved off each time by a series of payment "patches" passed by Congress.
The SGR repeal was included in a bill known asH.R. 2 or the "Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015." It's a package that would add about $200 billion to the projected Medicare budget over the next 10 years. The measure includes replacing the SGR with an increase of 0.5% in Medicare physician reimbursement starting in July 2015 through December 2015, and then annual 0.5% increases lasting through 2019.
The measure also consolidates various reporting programs, such as the Meaningful Use program for electronic health records and several quality reporting programs, into a new, merit-based incentive payment system and would incentivize physicians to participate in alternative payment models such as accountable care organizations (ACOs).
In addition, the bill extends the Children's Health Insurance Program as well as funding for community health centers and the National Health Service Corps.
The bill now moves to the Senate, where prospects for passage are less certain. And time is running out: Congress is scheduled to go on a 2-week recess starting next week. Without either a temporary or a permanent fix to the SGR, a 21.2% pay cut for Medicare physicians will go into effect on April 1.
Several physician organizations praised Thursday's House vote. "While many members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans, helped to achieve to today's result, Speaker [John] Boehner [R-Ohio] and Minority Leader [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] deserve special praise for exhibiting leadership and courage in forging this bipartisan package," Robert Wah, MD, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement.
"We urge the U.S. Senate to take swift action to approve the policy and send it to the President's desk before the current SGR payment patch expires on March 31 ... The time is now to finally lay this destructive issue to rest and act immediately to build a stable and sustainable Medicare program that our nation's patients and physicians need and deserve."
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) also applauded the House vote. "In voting to repeal the sustainable growth rate formula and replace it with a stable Medicare payment structure, the House has taken an important step towards solving a problem that has caused uncertainty for more than a decade for Medicare patients and for the clinicians who care for them," said ACC president Kim Allan Williams Sr., MD, in a statement.
"This legislation will allow physicians to focus more fully on patient care rather than face the threat of dramatic cuts that could make caring for Medicare patients unsustainable. Instead of kicking the can down the road one more time, Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi demonstrated strong bipartisan leadership to address this problem at last. We urge the Senate to follow suit and quickly take up and pass the provisions of the House measure, H.R. 2, before the expiration of the current SGR patch on March 31st."
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) also weighed in. “We support this long-overdue reform of the Medicare payment formula and elimination of the SGR,” APA President Paul Summergrad, MD, said in a statement.
“APA strongly supports the bipartisan legislation the House passed and will continue to partner with the AMA and the other medical societies to urge all senators to vote yes to send the bill to President Obama, who has already said he would sign it,” added APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, MD.
Washington healthcare consultant Kip Piper called the bill a “solid improvement” in the world of Medicare. “In addition to finally repealing the perennial nightmare that is the sustainable growth rate and creating a new performance-based pathway for physician payment, the bill extends CHIP in enough time for states to avoid serious disruption in coverage for 6 million children,” he said in an email.
The bill “also represents a practical, more realistic view of the fiscal impact of the SGR payment formula and the silliness of years of temporary extensions, each with significant offsetting cuts to Medicare and Medicaid providers even though extensions were inevitable,” Piper continued. “It represents an excellent move forward and will, if passed by the Senate and signed by the President, take several key concerns – such as Medicare physician rate cuts [and] CHIP funding – off the legislative to-do list.”
Fuente: endovascular.es

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