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OPPOSE HOME CARE CUTS TO FUND PHYSICIAN PAYMENT FIX
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Physicians' reimbursement will be reduced 27% on March 1 unless Congress finds alternative ways to offset the cuts. According to a panel of industry experts that met on Jan. 26, hospitals and home health care agencies are the providers mostly likely to have their Medicare reimbursement cut to help pay for an extension of program payments for physicians.
Former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said the Medicare home health care reimbursement could be reduced as much as $10 billion, even though the industry lost nearly $40 billion under health care reform.
A congressional committee is tasked with finding ways to avoid the massive physician reimbursement cut. The conference committee was formed as a result of an agreement reached late in 2011 to accept a Senate bill that increased physicians' pay for two months.
The House of Representatives passed a payroll tax cut bill (H.R. 3630) in December to cut payments to hospitals and raise Medicare premiums for the wealthy to help pay for a two-year doc fix, but Democrats rejected these cuts because it also included cuts in funding for the health care reform law.
The panel also said Congress will aim to pass a bill that will extend the doc pay fix to the end of 2012, to avoid having to revisit the issue during an election year.
In addition, Congress is considering even more cuts in order to offset pending Defense Department cuts set to be enacted beginning in 2013. After Congress' super committee failed to reach an agreement to reduce federal spending by over a trillion dollars last fall, all government programs were cut 2% beginning next year. As a result, Congress may look elsewhere, including home health, to find additional savings to help reduce the federal budget deficit so that it does not come from defense spending. Medicare reimbursement already is scheduled to be reduced 2% as a result of the mandate.
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