Senate leaders eye temporary, one-month 'doc fix' for Medicare reimbursement

Congress Daily: "Senate leaders are eyeing a temporary, one-month patch for a looming Medicare physician pay cut, hoping to buy time to work out a longer-term fix despite pushing deadlines for a number of other provider reimbursement issues. According to several sources on and off Capitol Hill, the Senate Finance Committee wants to pursue a stop-gap measure that would extend current Medicare payment rates through the end of the year, giving lawmakers some breathing room to work on a fix that would run six months to a year. Physician lobbying groups have pushed hard to get the 'doc fix' back on an annual schedule. ... On paper, at least, the federal government is scheduled to cut physicians' Medicare payments by 23 percent at the end of next month — and another 30 percent come Jan. 1" (DoBias, 10/7).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.