AAFP Harnesses Grassroots Network to Oppose Medicare Payment Cut

As Congress begins to debate ways of reducing Medicare payments to physicians by a scheduled 10-percent reduction, the AAFP has launched a targeted grassroots campaign to stop the cut.

On June 29, the AAFP sent a Speak Out alert via e-mail to more than 29,000 Academy members, urging them to contact their legislators who serve on key House and Senate committees to explain how "proposed cuts to the Medicare physician payment system would affect your practice and the patients you care for."

The Speak Out message was sent to Academy members who are constituents of House and Senate lawmakers serving on three committees with jurisdiction over Medicare physician payment: the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.

In July, "the House and Senate will begin to tackle Medicare physician payments for 2008 and beyond," the Speak Out message says. "Your legislator serves on a key committee that will determine whether family physicians face a payment increase, freeze or cut."

Medicare's sustainable growth rate, or SGR, formula determines annual Medicare payment rates, using a formula that aligns actual payment rates with specified expenditure targets. During the past five years, spending has exceeded targeted limits, triggering steep reductions in physician payments that were only averted by last-minute congressional action. Without congressional intercession, however, the SGR is projected to cause a 40-percent reduction in physician payment rates during the next eight years, including a 9.9 percent cut in 2008.

The Speak Out alert, which calls for a two-year positive update in Medicare physician payments, is intended to sway Congress by supplying congressional members with anecdotal or real-life evidence about the likely impact of physician payment cuts under Medicare.

"Only a coordinated effort between you as a local physician and constituent and the AAFP will keep the issue of Medicare physician payment rates in front of Congress," says the Speak Out alert.

On June 20, the Academy sent the same Speak Out alert to the 167 AAFP members who serve as "key contacts" for lawmakers on the three committees. The AAFP has relied heavily on its key contact initiative (PDF file: 4 pages / 84 KB. More about PDFs.) in making the case for an increase in Medicare physician payment rates. The initiative matches AAFP members with their representatives in Congress for advocacy purposes; thus far, the Academy has at least one AAFP key contact for each of 377 House and Senate members, covering about 70 percent of Congress.