Becker's Healthcare November 13, 2024
On Nov. 1, CMS finalized its 2025 physician payment rule, which includes a 94 cent (2.83%) conversion factor decrease from 2024.
This is unwelcome news for independent physicians, many of whom have been outspoken about the negative impacts of consistently declining reimbursement rates.
“Physician reimbursement continues to lag behind inflation, and this next set of cuts by CMS will only further rub salt in the wound,” Tan Chen, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Geisinger Health in Wilkes Barre, Pa., told Becker’s.
CMS’ physician payment has effectively declined 29% since 2001 when adjusted for inflation, according to the American Medical Association.
“There will be, and already has been for so many, a breaking point in which it...