 Oct. 19, 2002 |
| ASSEMBLY EDITION • SAN DIEGO |
Make a house call when you get home
Encourage U.S. Congress to fix flawed Medicare fee formula
The House of Representatives voted 228-172 Wednesday night to continue funding domestic programs and departments on a temporary basis until Nov. 22, effectively postponing action on its remaining legislative workload until a "lame duck" session after the elections.
Included in the work yet to be done is fixing the flawed Medicare fee formula.
"The current formula is so complicated that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has made significant errors in interpretation, cost projections, and the inclusion or exclusion of codes," said AAFP Board Chair Warren Jones, M.D., of Ridgeland, Miss. "The formula must be fixed."
For the past 11 years, physicians' costs, as measured by the government's own medical economic index, have gone up on average 2.2 percent per year. During that same time period, Medicare reimbursement rates have gone up on average 1.1 percent per year.
Additionally, the Medicare conversion factor is expected to produce another decrease of about 4.4 percent in 2003, following the 5.4 percent cut that physicians experienced this year.
A recent AAFP member survey found that the number of family physicians who are no longer taking new Medicare patients is 28 percent higher than one year ago. Some 21.7 percent of physicians surveyed in June 2002 said they could no longer take new Medicare patients, compared with last year's figure of 17 percent.
"This continued decrease in Medicare fee reimbursement to physicians will only hurt those who need medical care the most by forcing physicians to limit their care to the elderly," Jones said. "I encourage all family physicians to make house calls on their senators and representatives while the lawmakers are home for the elections. Urge them to act on Medicare legislation that includes the physician update before they adjourn."
Family physicians are also encouraged to send lawmakers e-mails about the Medicare fee schedule by following directions at http://capitol.aafp.org/.
FP Report is published by the
AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2002 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.