(S)aying (G)ood (R)iddance
No, you weren’t dreaming. Congress really did get rid of SGR. So, now what?
After twelve years and seventeen patches and eighteen years after the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 brought us the flawed SGR, we can say good riddance! Senate and House members from both sides of the aisle worked together to make this happen by passing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).
AMS encourages you (if you haven’t already) to thank Senators John Boozman and Tom Cotton, along with your Congressman for all of their support on this bill. It was great having the entire Arkansas congressional delegation vote in favor, and they ALL deserve our thanks. Although the votes were strong (392-37 and 92-8), fewer than half the states had their ENTIRE delegation vote for the legislation.
MACRA not only repeals the SGR, but also has annual payment updates of 0.5%, beginning this July 1 through 2019.
Other physician-friendly provisions will:
- Simplify Medicare’s current quality reporting programs into a single Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Rolling these programs into MIPS will reduce the aggregate level of potential financial penalties previously in place.
- Protect state liability reforms and ensure medical liability cases cannot use Medicare quality program standards and measures as a standard or duty of care.
- Provide incentive payments to physicians who participate in alternative payment models while meeting certain thresholds.
- Provide technical support to help practices with a new fee-for-service incentive program and/or new alternative payment models.
Participation in any new payment model is voluntary. The Medicare fee-for-service payment model remains intact. WE REPEAT…while the bill supports physicians who choose to voluntarily adopt new payment and delivery models, it also retains Medicare’s fee-for-service model. Participation in new models is entirely VOLUNTARY.