A report on The Hill relates the one month “doc fix” approved by Congress to prevent a Medicare cut in physician payments. Those cuts were originally part of the “savings” paying for health care reform.
“The bill — called the “Physician Payment and Therapy Relief Act of 2010” — would cost $1 billion over 10 years. This would be offset, according to a summary, by reducing by 20 percent payments for multiple therapy services provided to patients in one day.
The cut to physical therapists is not as steep as a 25 percent cut that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had already been considering — hence the words “Therapy Relief Act.” But whereas the savings from those therapy cuts were initially supposed to be redistributed to participants in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, the Senate proposal would use them instead for the doc fix.”
Call me crazy (or logical), but is there any net savings or are we charging one credit card to pay the bill on another?
Related Articles
- Senate Passes Doc Fix Bill (gardnersgate.blogspot.com)
- Senate tries to protect doctors from Medicare rate cuts (money.cnn.com)
- Doc Fix Problem Still Not Fixed (reason.com)
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