RSS feedIt’s been an interesting few weeks with regard to the Medicare Physician Fee schedule.
In my post on February 26th, I detailed the last-minute objections by lame-duck Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning to the passage of the bill which contained a 30-day hold on the 21.3% decrease in the physician fee schedule. Due to Bunning’s hold, CMS was left no alternative but to instruct carriers to hold all claims with dates of service March 1st and beyond for 10 business days in the hopes that the bill would be passed in the Senate. On March 2nd, after several hours on the Senate floor shaking his fists and yelling at clouds as only an elderly man can for the viewing pleasure of the C-SPAN audience, Bunning relented, the bill passed, President Obama signed the legislation into law and the claims hold was lifted almost immediately.
Due to the new deadline of April 1st, the issue was taken up again this week by Congress. The Senate actually acted first this past Wednesday, passing a bill that would extend the hold on the fee schedule decrease until October 1st. This legislation now returns to the House of Representatives for consideration next week.
What is still needed, and apparently not being talked about on the legislative side, is a permanent fix to the sustainable growth rate formula. The October 1st deadline now represents the 4th moving of the goalposts in a period of 3 months. While no one wants to see the 21% cut, the chorus from those wanting a permanent fix continues to grow louder.
With better news, we now enter a world more plagued by uncertainty than even the payment fix, this being the continuing saga of the broad healthcare legislation currently coursing its way through Congress at the rate of a sloth in an opium den.
From what I can gather from news reports, it would appear that a final vote on healthcare legislation is going to occur by the end of the month. President Obama has delayed a planned trip to Guam, Australia and Indonesia that was scheduled to take place from March 18-24 by three days in order to concentrate on getting healthcare legislation passed and enacted into law. So many variables remain on the table as the bill enters final negotiations that it would be premature of me to predict the shape of the final legislation. Judging by what I’m hearing, my optimism isn’t high.
As is often the case in Washington, the inflated sense of self-importance so prevalent in American politics tends to rear its head in the most ugly fashion possible when one side perceives that they aren’t getting everything they want right this minute. The cacophony of nonsense that has poisoned the well of civilized political discourse for the last 20+ years insures two outcomes, the first being ever expanding concentric circles of bad legislative decisions and the second being a chronic loss of interest in the issues that count from the rational people who most need to be part of the debate.
Rather than ending on a pessimistic note, I’ll end with a happier tone. St. Patrick’s Day is now five days away. I’ll be “out of the office” on Wednesday, March 17th. If you happen to be out in the great beyond of Milwaukee this coming Wednesday and you come across someone with brown hair wearing a Guinness hockey jersey, do the right thing and prop me up.
Until then, have a great weekend!
