Happy With Medicare Payment? Speak Out Now if You Aren't

If there ever were a time for action regarding Medicare physician payment, this is it.

If you're unhappy with what Medicare pays you, if it's not enough to sustain your practice, if it threatens to eliminate access for your Medicare patients -- and if the 5.1 percent pay cut scheduled to start Jan. 1 could be the straw that breaks your back -- visit AAFP Speak Out. Contact your federal legislators and insist on action before they recess for November's midterm elections. The target for recess is Oct. 1.

If legislators recess without a long-term solution for Medicare payment -- or without at least passing a short-term fix for 2007 -- Academy members need to keep the fire white-hot for reform during the lame-duck session that follows the election.

If nothing is done, the 5.1 percent cut in January will be followed by cuts for the subsequent eight years, for a nearly 40 percent reduction in Medicare payment overall. That's lunacy personified.

The culprit is the sustainable growth rate, or SGR, the formula now used to calculate Medicare physician payment. AAFP's solution: Deep-six the SGR and base the payment system on the Medicare Economic Index instead, which would eliminate the annual payment reductions.

Read about AAFP leaders' recent visit to Capitol Hill, an effort to catapult Congress into action on this issue. Suffice it to say that AAFP President-Elect Rick Kellerman, M.D., called it "the most frustrating Capitol Hill visit I've ever had in 15 or 20 years of making Hill visits." Although there's considerable support for providing a positive update next year and ultimately reforming the SGR, the difficulty lies in how to come up with the dollars needed to offset the cost. Given the upcoming election, Democrats are reluctant to sign on to Republican-sponsored fixes, and Republicans -- especially in the House -- are growing more concerned about remaining in the majority. The upshot is that no one reform strategy is emerging from the pack.

The AAFP and its members are ready to exert more pressure on Congress Sept. 27, when thousands of family physicians speak out in person at the Vote for America's Health Capitol Hill Rally -- the AAFP's first-ever rally, held during the AAFP Scientific Assembly in Washington. If you live near enough to drive in, add your voice to this historic event. Your family, staff and patients are welcome to attend as well.

But the truth is, visits by AAFP officers and staff members and a rally are still not enough. Legislators must be inundated by thousands more family physicians who articulate, loudly and clearly, what will happen if the current lunacy with Medicare payment continues, including the impact it will have on lawmakers' constituents who rely on Medicare.

So don't just stew over Medicare payment. Vent your anger constructively by using Speak Out!

Here's one other thing you can do: Volunteer to serve as an AAFP key contact. As new members of Congress come up to speed after the elections, you can learn the ropes of being an effective key contact, providing the ongoing, personal attention legislators need to understand family medicine's key issues and see the value of AAFP's proposed solutions. For more information, contact Jerry Connolly, senior government relations representative in the AAFP Washington Office, at (800) 274-2237, Ext. 2530, or e-mail jconnolly@aafp.org.