Support Congressional Efforts to Halt Impending Medicare Cuts
Urge Your Legislator to Support Action by CMS
ACEP members have stepped up not only in efforts to manage and mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic but also in advocating directly to your legislators about what you are seeing on the frontlines and how they can best support and take care of their constituents and the health care workforce.
Another threat to your livelihood and ability to care for patients is on the horizon and we need your help in contacting Congress today.
Recently, you and your colleagues in emergency medicine made your voice heard and helped secure 93 signatories on a bipartisan “Dear Colleague” letter led by Rep. Bobby Rush that called on the House of Representatives to prevent harmful cuts to physicians and other health care providers. But more advocacy is now needed from you, as our champions in Congress are working all angles on this critical issue.
Now, we need you to urge your member of Congress to sign on to a new bipartisan letter led by Reps. Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) asking HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CMS Administrator Seema Verma to take immediate actions to delay or mitigate these cuts.
Background:
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued its proposed 2021 Medicare physician fee schedule (PFS), which proposes Medicare payment rates beginning January 1, 2021. The fee schedule often serves as the basis for which many private payors set their reimbursement rates as well.
Prior to the release of the PFS, ACEP was successful in advocating for increases for the ED E/M codes, providing data and a solid policy argument directly to CMS and the White House. Our advocacy was successful and CMS is now proposing to adopt our specific code values for the ED E/M codes, which increases emergency medicine reimbursement by approximately 3 percent for CY 2021.
Unfortunately, because of the existing budget neutrality requirement under the Medicare PFS, any increases in the value of one code means a corresponding decrease in the value of all other codes and primary care E/M codes are scheduled to receive a substantial boost. So, the increase that ACEP advocacy sustained for you was cancelled out and then some by the CMS budget neutrality requirement.
Congress has the power to fix this by preventing these cuts from taking effect or holding physicians harmless from these cuts.
Less than 20 hours after CMS released the proposed rule, ACEP sent a letter to Congress expressing our strong concerns on this proposed cut, noting the unprecedented strain emergency physician practices already are facing due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
What Can You Do: Second Ask – We Need Your Help Again.
Urge your member of Congress to sign on to a new bipartisan letter led by Reps. Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) asking HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CMS Administrator Seema Verma to take immediate actions to delay or mitigate these cuts.
Congress is already juggling many other priorities as a result of the pandemic and pressure from the upcoming November elections, but your efforts are clearly having an effect and more legislators are aware of this impending crisis. It is essential that they hear directly from emergency physicians in their district just how devastating these cuts could be for access to emergency care for patients across the country.