Happy Friday! A Senate shake-up this a.m.: 🚨 Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is out with a video this morning saying she plans to leave the Democratic party and register as an independent. She told Politico that she doesn’t plan to caucus with Republicans.
Hospitals, doctors scramble to get looming cuts halted
Provider groups, along with their congressional allies, are escalating lobbying efforts in an attempt to stave off cuts to physician and hospital pay.
The blitz is aimed at several cuts set to kick in next year, as well as an extension of expiring provisions. Doctors are rushing to avert a nearly 4.5 percent cut to their Medicare reimbursement, while physicians and hospitals are seeking to again waive a mandatory across-the-board cut of up to 4 percent to their Medicare payments.
Physician and hospital groups are used to putting their lobbying might behind efforts to fend off pay cuts — and they often get their way. Congressional aides and lobbyists say talks are ongoing and the conversations on this are extremely fluid, with leadership yet to even clinch a deal on a top-line spending agreement for a year-end package.
With that backdrop, groups and provider-friendly lawmakers are scrambling to ensure a potential year-end spending deal halts the looming cuts.
- The American Medical Association’s president headed to Capitol Hill this week for three days of meetings as provider groups urged their members to call and email their representatives in Congress.
- Two cohorts of lawmakers are gathering signatures for letters, which were obtained by The Health 202, that they plan to send to congressional leadership next week.
- A pair of senators is planning to introduce legislation next week to extend an expiring financial incentive for physicians to participate in certain Medicare payment models.
The details
Many provider groups and some lawmakers have a big ask: They’re seeking to avert the cuts in their entirety, arguing their practices are grappling with high inflation and rising costs. But that could be a tall order amid tense negotiations over the health-care portion for a possible year-end spending deal.
“I am not here to negotiate,” Jack Resneck, the president of the AMA, said of his visits to Capitol Hill this week. “I’m here to be very clear that no cuts are acceptable at this time.”
Reps. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) are asking other lawmakers to sign onto a bipartisan letter with a similar message. “Physicians, in particular, do not receive inflationary updates in the Medicare program and, as a result, we urge Congressional intervention to prevent the entirety of these cuts,” said the letter obtained by The Health 202.
Meanwhile, the GOP Doctors Caucus is readying a letter pushing for leadership’s support in the short term, while pledging to work on longer-term solutions to avoid what’s become an annual lobbying exercise of fending off cuts on Capitol Hill.
But not all experts believe that Congress needs to swoop in. Per Stat’s Bob Herman, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission told Congress earlier this year that it would be reasonable to set physician payments “by the amount under current law,” and that doing so wouldn’t impact access to care or clinicians’ ability to provide it.