Medicare Pay Cuts Get Expected 1-Month Reprieve

Remember the other day when I said that the projected pay cut for today would be 23% if nothing was done to extend your Medicare payment benefits? Well, I forgot about the additional 2% lollypop they threw in on the last pass. The actual pay cut would have been 25%! It's a good thing then that Congress acted quickly upon returning to session Monday (Nov 29th).

So, here's the breakdown:

Positive

• Congress and the Senate went for the quick fix (bless them doing something), they decided to extend H.R. 5712 to carry you through the end of December at your current rates. (H.R. 5712 is the Physician Payment and Therapy Relief Act of 2010)

Negative

• You will be up for pay cuts again on January 1, 2011, to the tune of 20%, unless something changes or is enacted by January 1st.

Worrisome and Up for Debate

• H.R. 6427 the bill that was looking to keep your pay rate at present levels, add an additional 1%, and hold through the entire 2011 year...well, that has gone to the budgeting committee at this point. As part of the statutory Pay-As-You-Go (also called PAYGO) Act of 2010, the budgeting committee has to look it over to find if the funds are available to off-set the costs to cover it. So, we can only guess when it will get back to the Senate and Congress for further debate.
• There still has been no real discussion of an appropriate or more permanent fix.

Same Council as Before

• Cover your butts. Bill out before the new deadline and then wait and see what the next deadline is before billing out again. Play it whatever way will be smartest for your office finances.

If you would like to follow H.R. 6427 more closely, you can do so at the www.opencongress.org web site.