Kaitlynn's Place

Unless Congress can get their rear ends out of neutral, medical practices that take Medicare will  be forced to file claims at rates reduced by 21.3%.  After several postponements, the 19 month Medicare “doc fix” action is finally being taken up in the Senate, but Senate may be too little too late.

The Medicare payment cuts were scheduled to start June 1st, but the agency that oversees Medicare (CMS) asked contractors to delay processing patient claims for 10 business days in an effort to give Congress time to act. However, June 10th is here and the cuts have still not been addressed by Congress. Senator Charles Schumer of New York spoke about the issue in a press conference this week. He says the Senate is expected to have the 60 votes early next week. 

Even if the Senate passes the legislation next week and avoids a Republican filibuster, it still must pass the House and be signed by President Obama. So we are looking at a minimum of several weeks of Medicare rates being reduced by 21.3%.

This means a potential serious cash-flow shortage for physicians. Physicians can opt to not submit the claims until they can get an unreduced rate -or- immediately submit the claim at the reduced rate and hope for a better retroactive rate once the doc fix is passed; either way, the Medicare health care provider is going to be cash strapped with the cut. Medicare makes up about 30% of the average doctor revenue. We may see medium to small practices making serious cuts to make up for their income loss.

Read more:

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/healthcare/102021-delay-in-medicare-payment-fix-could-mess-up-doctors-cash-flow?page=2#comments


http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/723317