There is a bipartisan 'Dear Colleague' letter circulating the House of Representatives led by Reps. Miller-Meeks and Panetta that supports stopping the proposed cut of 2.8% to the Medicare conversion factor for 2025, as well as providing an inflationary update to Medicare physician payment moving forward.

Please utilize MGMA's Contact Congress portal to send a pre-populated letter to their representatives urging them to support a sustainable Medicare reimbursement system.

There is also a letter not related to the Dear Colleague letter that calls for the prevention of the proposed Medicare cuts and advocating for an inflationary update and changes to the Medicare budget neutrality process. That letter is the second one on the MGMA’s Contact Congress portal.

Join in the Campaign to Reach Out to Your Congressional Delegation Related to the Pending Medicare Cuts!

Below is a summary of the CBO Report on MACRA from CMS that provides context. (Report linked here)

Essentially, MACRA is set by Congress and governs how physician services (Part B Medicare) fees are paid. It was instituted to drive payment towards value and less volume to affect health care expense increases as noted in the table on page 6. It was founded in the idea that value would become the bulk of how health care is paid for by the end of 2025. The basis is those systems who could objectively show they improve outcomes and lower costs by eliminating unnecessary services, would be rewarded, and those who do not demonstrate that would see payment reductions.

The journey to value has not progressed as projected. Reasons for that are the difficulty, but predominantly COVID created a tremendous pause in this work. As such, the payment cuts that were projected to be the drivers of activities to improve and capture funds via demonstrated value or see fee reductions, are legislatively occurring. Congress understands this has not matured as expected, but they are reluctant to act due to the budgetary impact of overriding the planned reductions. They acknowledge the delay in value development is not due to failure to try and have sympathy for such, but politically they are reluctant to add to the deficit with an override of planned cuts.

Last year, the projected pay cut was to be 3.4%, and in February that was overridden to be a 1.7% cut. Still a cut and this year we’re facing a required 2.8% cut unless Congress acts. We need to get enough constituent pressure on the congressional delegation in the House and Senate to have them act on this matter and override the cuts, and reset the take-off strip for value to develop further. Your advocacy as a constituent is much more powerful than a Political Action Committee or a trade association, so we ask you and your physicians to reach out to the Utah delegation and ask for relief.