Senate To Bring Up SGR Fix TODAY

Summary:
You’ve been hearing from the ACC on a myriad of issues, most notably the proposed CMS rule that threatens to drastically cut payments to cardiologists. While fighting these proposed cuts remains our highest priority, we feel it’s important for our cardiovascular specialists to weigh in on another issue that has arisen as the Senate considers health care reform legislation.

Issue:

Last week, the “Medicare Physicians Fairness Act of 2009” (S. 1776) was introduced in the U.S. Senate. Senate leadership has announced that the bill will serve as the legislative vehicle for eliminating the sustainable growth rate formula (SGR) and help Congress begin to establish a new Medicare physician payment system. The bill would repeal the SGR permanently and set future payment updates at zero. However, this payment freeze would not be permanent. Instead, S. 1776 would reset the budget baseline that is the primary obstacle to Medicare physician payment reform. The debt that has accumulated in the SGR system because of the one-year “band-aid” solutions used in the past would be wiped out, allowing a new and more sensible payment system to be implemented in the final health reform bill passed by Congress.

This legislation will have its first vote TODAY AT APPROXIMATELY 3 P.M. The vote will allow the legislation to move forward, and requires 60 votes to pass. It’s imperative that at least 60 Senators agree to allow the bill to move forward, and we must move quickly.

We need your help. We strongly urge you to contact your Senators NOW and ask them to support this bill. We have made contacting your Senators quick and easy – simply click the "Take Action Now" button below to send a message. We strongly urge you to personalize your message with information about how physician payment cuts will affect your practice and your patients. The process will take you less than five minutes, and could make all the difference in the passage of this landmark legislation.

We will follow up with more information next week. Please click "Take Action Now" to contact your Senators, and thank you for your continued advocacy efforts.