On Friday, after a week of wrangling, the Senate voted to pass legislation aimed at sparing doctors a 21% cut in Medicare payments. However, Senate procrastination has cost doctors and taxpayers more money and is giving medical practitioners second thoughts about serving senior Medicare patients.
Because the House can’t act on this last ditch effort until next week, within minutes after the Senate voted, Medicare made an announcement that it’s going to start processing the claims it has received this month using the lower rate. What this means is that all medical providers who bill under the Medicare physicians fee schedule will have to resubmit their claims if they want to receive the entire amount now due them.
This additional paperwork will cost taxpayers as well as the doctors, physical therapists, nurse practitioners and others who provide help to Medicare patients more money.
The president of the AMA (American Medical Association), Dr. Cecil B. Wilson, in a statement said, “This is no way to run a major health coverage program,” and feels that, “Congress is playing Russian roulette with seniors’ health care.”
The AMA says that the continuing financial uncertainty could cause a number of doctors to drop out of the program or to stop taking new Medicare patients.
The AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) called the cut “dangerous” and “unprecedented” although it is only temporary.
Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s executive vice president said, “This cut creates a dangerous atmosphere for seniors and their doctors, and will contribute to more doctors making the decision already made by some physicians to stop taking Medicare patients.”
Vice President Joe Biden, blaming the Republicans for their unwillingness to agree to a permanent fix to the doctors cuts said, “The failure to deal with this problem adds to the anxiety of seniors…and complicates the planning for medical practice…. It’s just not fair to keep this anxiety level constantly in play here.”
He continued by saying it is “a shameful example of business as usual.”
The cuts to Medicare are required by a 1990s budget cutting law. However, although Congress has routinely waived the cuts this time, because of concern about increasing the deficit, the waiver was held up.
Medicare says they were trying to hold off of processing claims, hoping that lawmakers would act sooner. The agency decided to start processing the claims because they said they were concerned that holding off would hurt doctors’ cash flow.
