Medicare Physician Payment: Why It’s Still A Problem, And What To Do Now

Health Affairs January 27, 2017
Robert Smoldt, Denis Cortese, Natalie Landman, and David Gans

When the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) passed Congress in 2015, most people felt it was better than the old “Sustainable Growth Rate” (SGR) approach to setting physician Medicare fees that had been in place for more than a decade. After all, MACRA avoided what was to be a double digit reduction in Medicare physician payment rates in 2015. Instead, the new legislation provides five years of a 0.5 percent payment rate update, followed by five years of no increase (but also no decrease) in the payment rate. In addition, beginning in 2019, physicians will be able to pick from two novel payment approaches meant to reward providers delivering high-value care.

MACRA is indeed better than what came...

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