AAFP Launches Virtual Rally to Stop Medicare Payment Cuts

The AAFP is holding a virtual rally on Capitol Hill this week, urging members to call their senators to stop pending cuts in Medicare physician payment rates. The cuts are scheduled to go into effect in 2008 and 2009 under the sustainable growth rate, or SGR, formula.

In an e-mail alert announcing the virtual rally, AAFP President Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., urges members to call their senators immediately to support legislation that would provide a two-year positive physician payment update without creating a bigger deficit that would have to be addressed in later years.

"There have been some reports that the Senate Finance Committee may propose either a one-year freeze or a small increase while using an accounting gimmick that will make the cut in 2009 as large as 15 percent," King explains. "This accounting gimmick would make it increasingly difficult for Congress to find the funds to finally fix the problem."

If Congress fails to act on the issue, he notes, physicians face a 10.1 percent drop in the Medicare payment rate in 2008, with an additional 5 percent cut in 2009.

Because the committee may act this week on the payment issue, it's imperative for AAFP members to call their senators instead of e-mailing or writing them, King says.

Call the AMA’s toll-free grassroots hotline at (800) 833-6354 to be patched through to your senators’ offices. Then tell them to talk to Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chair and ranking Republican member, respectively, of the Senate Finance Committee, about a two-year physician payment update. The senators should urge Baucus and Grassley "to put the Medicare physician payment issue first," King says.

"All of the other provisions to Medicare can be addressed when the foundational issue of the payment formula is addressed, at least for two years without creating a larger deficit," he adds.

The AAFP, along with other physician groups, held a virtual rally on the payment issue in November; that rally produced more than 12,000 physician phone calls to Capitol Hill, eventually convincing Congress to move on the Medicare payment issue.

"We need to keep the message alive," King says. "We again hope thousands of physicians will let their senators know that Medicare pay cuts are unacceptable."