A scheduled 10 percent fee cut for doctors who treat Medicare patients is being frozen by the Bush administration, according to announcement made on Monday.
This will give Congress time to act to prevent the cuts when lawmakers return from a July 4 recess.
Some physician’s say the cuts may make doctors less willing to treat patients. The administration’s delay in implementing the cuts spares lawmakers from having to use the recess to explain to seniors why they didn’t do the job before leaving town.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will hold doctors’ Medicare claims for services delivered on or after July 1. Claims for services received on or before June 30 will be processed as usual, according to Kevin Schweers, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Congress will almost certainly act quickly when it returns to Washington the week of July 7 to prevent the cuts in payments for some 600,000 doctors who treat Medicare patients. They could otherwise face millions of angry seniors at the polls in November. The cuts were scheduled because of a formula that requires fee cuts when spending exceeds established goals.
“The Department of Health and Human Services will take all steps available to the department under the law to minimize the impact on providers and beneficiaries,” said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt.
“By holding claims for health care services that are delivered on or after July 1, CMS will not be making any payments on the 10.6 percent reduction until July 15 at the earliest,” Schweers said.
Congress finds a way to block such cuts nearly every year. But last week the Senate fell just one vote short of the 60 needed to proceed to legislation that would have stopped the cut.
Physicians have been running ads hinting that patients may find doctors less willing to treat them.
Dr. Nancy H. Nielsen, president of the American Medical Association, said the country is “at the brink of a Medicare meltdown.” So far, Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other.
The AMA took out several ads in Capitol Hill newspapers read by members of Congress and their aids saying: “Seniors need continued access to the doctors they trust. It’s urgent that Congress make that happen.”
For years Doctors have complained that Medicare payments have failed to cover rising costs.
Majority Democrats homed in on cutting the Medicare Advantage program this year, which is an ideological issue for both parties.
The Bush administration and Republicans like Medicare Advantage because it lets the elderly and disabled choose to get their health benefits through private insurers rather than through traditional Medicare. Democrats argued that government payments to the insurers are too generous.
The Whitehouse issued a warning that President Bush would be urged to veto a bill that contained cuts to Medicare Advantage.
But last Tuesday the House approved the legislation 355-59, well above the margin needed to override a veto.
Every Democrat supported it, and Republicans, bucking their president, voted 129-59 for it.
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