Congress has signed a downsized funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, which did not include a bipartisan package that would have offset CMS' 2.85% cut to physician payments in 2025.
Here are five things to know about the funding bill and physicians' reactions:
1. The bill did grant temporary extensions for telehealth flexibilities that were set to expire at the end of the year.
2. "For the fifth consecutive year, Congress has adjourned and allowed Medicare cuts," American Medical Association President Bruce Scott, MD, said in a Dec. 21 news release. "What will be the result? Patients struggling to access health care. Physicians closing or selling their private practices while others opt to leave the profession."
3. The AMA also criticized lawmakers for failing to improve patient care by failing to include prior authorization reform — which had bipartisan support in the House and the Senate — in the final package.
"Leaving it on the cutting room floor is an unnecessary gift to the insurance industry at the expense of our patients," Dr. Scott said. "Physicians have unique training and expertise when prescribing appropriate care, and we don't need insurance companies delaying and interfering with our patients' vital treatments."
4. According to the AMA, physicians' pay rates from CMS have dropped 33% over 20 years, with little regard for inflationary adjustments, prior authorization reforms and increasing costs of operating a medical practice.
5. The Medical Group Management Association, while expressing relief over the telehealth extension, criticized Congress for failing to halt the cut to physician pay.
"The previously agreed-upon [continuing resolution], while not perfect, would have critically averted most of the 2.83% cut to physician reimbursement in Medicare beginning Jan. 1," Anders Gilberg, senior vice president of government affairs, said in a statement. "Now physician practices head into the new year facing uncertainty and financial shortfalls that not only negatively impact the viability of their Medicare business, but their commercial contracts tied to Medicare rates, as well as Medicaid reimbursement in states that use Medicare as a benchmark."