Health Law

Senate Passes Short Term Medicare Physician Fee Fix

By Todd Rodriguez

On Friday, June 18, the Senate approved a bill which, if passed by the House next week, would prevent the scheduled 21% cut in Medicare reimbursement under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.  The bill would provide for a 2.2% increase over 2009 rates but only until November 30, 2010. 

Unfortunately, the Senate action comes too late to stop the scheduled cuts from taking effect pending action by the House of Representatives.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which has held off on processing physician claims since June 1, 2010 (when the cuts technically took effect), has now instructed its contractors to start processing claims from June 1 or later at the reduced 2010 rates pending passage of the bill. 

Full post as published by Physician Law on June 21, 2010 (boomark / email).