AABIP Advocacy Statement

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ALERT

2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule—proposed 2.8% cut

August 2024

Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released their CY 25 physician payment schedule.  The 2025 Medicare conversion factor is set to decrease for the fifth straight year by approximately 2.80 percent from $33.2875 to $32.3562. The proposed 2.8% cut is the fifth consecutive year of payment reductions following a 1.69%  Medicare pay cut in 2024 and 2% drop in 2023.  Meanwhile, CMS predicts that the Medicare Economic Index [MEI]—the measure of practice-cost inflation—will increase by 3.6%.  As the gap widens between what Medicare pays physicians and the cost of delivering quality care, older adults will have reduced access to care. Without a comprehensive legislative solution physicians will be unable to serve in rural or underserved areas.
The text of the proposed rule can be accessed at:

https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-14828.pdf

Changes to physician reimbursement are impacted by a desire to maintain budget neutrality without recognition of the impact of inflation.  Legislation providing inflation updates and revisiting budget neutrality policies is essential to ensure the Medicare physician payment update keeps up with the cost of practicing medicine and encourages practice innovation.

Legislation:
H.R.6371 - Provider Reimbursement Stability Act of 2023:  revises budget neutrality policies to mitigate conversion factor cuts
H.R.2474 - Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act:  links physician payment updates to the Medicare Economic Index

H.R.6683 - Preserving Seniors’ Access to Physicians Act of 2023:  eliminates the Medicare physician payment cut which went into effect January 1

No one is more qualified than YOU to discuss these issues with Congress.  To contact your member of congress, go to:

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

For additional questions about the 2025 proposed rule and how it affects Interventional Pulmonology, please contact Dr. Neeraj Desai and Dr. Laura Frye at the [email protected]

Updated 08/10/2024