Medicare Payment Cuts to Cause Challenges for Doctors in 2015 Medicare payment cut is scheduled to hit physicians starting 1st April 2015. If the Senate doesn’t act, physicians will have to face a 21% cut in Medicare payments which will not only affect patients’ access to care but will also lead to revenue challenges for medical practices. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, doctors who accept Medicare patients will have to face an average reduction of 21% in Medicare reimbursement rates As per a study by Urban Institute, PCPs (primary care physicians) who still accept Medicare patients might have to face an average reduction of 42.8% in payments There are many physicians in the US who depend heavily on Medicare business and this 21% fee reduction has made them quite anxious. As per reports, the pending 21% fee cut can be delayed by Medicare officials for 10 working days after 1st April 2015. However, after 14th April, physicians will have to start facing reductions. On an average, Medicare pays approximately 80% of what private health insurance companies pay to the doctors. Congress passed legislation in 1997 and said that if it will be unsuccessful in slowing Medicare’s growth rate to match GDP, Medicare will start reducing what it pays to the doctors. For more than a decade, efforts to stem Medicare’s growth rate have failed. Payment rates have remained unchanged for all these years because Congress kept postponing the required fee reductions by passing legislations. For this year, it has April 1 to come up with legislation or else doctors treating Medicare patients will have to face a 21.2% average fee cut. If the fee cut is implemented, doctors will be in for a bruising financial year. They will not just lose 21% of Medicare payments but also 43% of Medicaid payments. Due to less payment, doctors might start attending less Medicare patients, causing trouble to poor and senior citizens in finding a good doctor.
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