Archive for Action Alert
21% Medicare/TRICARE Cut Reversed – For Now
Posted by: | Comments21% Medicare/TRICARE Cut Reversed – For Now
Last week, we urged MOAA members to email their House members to quickly pass legislation approved by the Senate (H.R. 3962) to restore full Medicare/TRICARE payments to doctors through the end of November 2010.
Initially, House leaders planned to delay action on that measure until the Senate passed a broader jobs bill.
After more than 17,000 MOAA members contacted their House members to urge immediate action, House leaders finally brought up and passed the bill Thursday night.
The President is expected to sign it into law immediately.
It will reverse a 21% payment cut that the flawed statutory payment formula had imposed on Medicare as of June 1. Medicare held up processing claims for more than two weeks beyond that date in hopes of quick Hill action, but finally had to implement the reduced payments for claims since June 1 as Congress continued to drag its feet.
Now that the fix is done, Medicare will have to reprocess the affected claims and pay doctors the difference.
TRICARE never got to the point of implementing the 21% cut, as TRICARE payment changes normally trail Medicare’s by 30 to 60 days.
We appreciate Congress taking action to stave off the cuts, but the unfortunate reality is that all this bill did was kick the problem downstream six months until after the election.
Which means Congress will have to act again in the coming months to keep the 21% cut from being reinstated as of December 1.
In the meantime, many thanks are due to the thousands of MOAA members who helped Congress get off the dime – again – on this crucial health care issue.
Medicare and TRICARE good news – bad news
Posted by: | CommentsThe good news is that, after we put out Friday’s legislative update, the Senate finally acted to pass legislation (H.R. 3962) reversing the 21% cut in Medicare and TRICARE payments and putting off any rate reduction through the end of November.
The bad news is that House leaders put out a statement this morning that they won’t allow action on this crucial bill unless the Senate acts on jobs legislation previously passed by the House.
That’s just going too far.
Because Congress failed in its responsibility to pass a timely fix, Medicare already has implemented the 21% cut, retroactive to June 1, and TRICARE will do so next month.
The House has the power to limit the damage by prompt action to pass H.R. 3962. Further delay will only cause more doctors to stop accepting Medicare and TRICARE patients.
Seniors and military beneficiaries deserve better than being treated as pawns in political games that put their health care access at risk.
Your action is needed NOW!
Please send your U.S. Representative a MOAA-prepared message to stop the politics and minimize the health care access damage, by passing H.R. 3962 now and working other political issues separately.
21% Medicare Cut Is Here
Posted by: | Comments21% Medicare Cut Is Here
Despite far too many months of legislative thrashing, the saga of the 21% cut in Medicare and TRICARE payments to doctors is about to take a turn for the worse.
In late May, we reported that the House of Representatives managed to pass a fix as part of the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (H.R. 4213).
The good news is that, unlike the month-to-month fixes Congress has adopted recently, the new House-passed plan would prevent any cuts through the end of 2011, and substitute 2% payment increases for 2010 and 2011.
The bad news is that the House’s delay in passing it until just before the Memorial Day recess caused the Senate to delay the start of its consideration until June 8 – a week after the June 1 implementation date for the 21% payment cut.
Medicare officials came to the interim rescue — announcing they would exercise their administrative authority to hold up processing of new claims for the first two weeks of June, in hopes Congress could pass corrective legislation within that time.
But continued haggling over amendments and costs sent that faint hope crashing, as Senate leaders announced the Senate won’t vote until next week – beyond the date Medicare is allowed to hold up claims processing. And even assuming the Senate gets a successful vote, House and Senate leaders still will have to negotiate a new compromise between their different versions of the bill, and that compromise will have to be approved again by both chambers.
Given that scenario, Medicare will have little choice but to implement the 21% payment cut as of June 15 – retroactive for Medicare-covered service since June 1.
While that’s extremely regrettable, it’s not the end of the world. In fact, the same thing happened in January 2006, when Congressional dithering past the deadline caused Medicare to implement payment cuts. After Congress eventually passed a fix several weeks later, Medicare reprocessed the claims and made retroactive payment increases to doctors.
But Congress’ inaction forced doctors to float an interim loan to the government for the payment differential. And the 2006 cut was only about 4% — a far cry from the current 21% cuts, so doctors are going to be very unhappy.
TRICARE beneficiaries under 65 and their doctors can take some consolation, since this is strictly a Medicare problem, at least for now. That’s because TRICARE normally implements payment changes about a month after Medicare does. So as long as Congress fixes the problem within a month, payments should be seamless for TRICARE.
But the payment delays and administrative hassles can only make doctors more reluctant about seeing Medicare and TRICARE patients alike.
Please send your legislators a MOAA-suggested message to get this extremely unsettling situation fixed – immediately.