AAFP Puts Muscle Behind Support for Bill to Fix SGR Formula

The AAFP is rallying support for a House bill that would provide a permanent fix for the sustainable growth rate, or SGR, formula and, thus, avert a 21.2 percent reduction in the Medicare physician payment rate scheduled to take place Jan. 1.

The Academy issued an Action Alert Nov. 12, asking AAFP members to contact their representatives and urge them to support the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009, H.R. 3961 (at the THOMAS Web site, type "H.R. 3961" in the search box after selecting "Bill Number"). The legislation would replace the SGR formula with physician updates tied to inflation rather than specified targets. The House is expected to vote on the measure sometime next week, making AAFP member outreach critical.

"According to H.R. 3961, the SGR would be replaced with a new formula that is designed to favor primary care by allowing the volume of primary and preventive care services to grow at gross domestic product plus 2 percent a year," said Kevin Burke, director of the AAFP Division of Government Relations.

Although the House passed a comprehensive health care reform bill on Nov. 7, the legislation did not address the SGR, creating the need for a separate bill to provide a permanent fix to the Medicare payment system.

"It is time to repeal the SGR once and for all and eliminate the accumulated Medicare physician payment cuts caused by the formula," Burke said.

The AAFP has taken other measures to help ensure passage of H.R. 3961. In a Nov. 3 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the AAFP called for passage of the bill, and in a series of meetings on Capitol Hill, AAFP President Lori Heim, M.D. of Vass, N.C., and other AAFP members urged lawmakers to support the legislation.

More recently, the Academy signed on to a letter circulated by the AMA to House Speaker Pelosi that calls for swift passage of H.R. 3961.

"The Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act will replace the physician payment system that is widely acknowledged to be dysfunctional and that continually threatens access to care for our nation's elderly and disabled patients as well as for our military families covered by TRICARE," says the letter. "It also will help provide physician practices with financial stability and predictability and enable them to invest in the infrastructure needed to build a health care system for the 21st century."

The letter also points out that "without Medicare physician payment reform, the goals of health system reform will remain out of reach."

"Another short-term patch that serves only to increase the severity of future cuts and raise the costs of permanently repealing the SGR Medicare physician payment formula is not a fiscally responsible solution," says the AMA letter, which was signed by more than 120 physician specialty organizations.