Emailed to SVS Members January 23, 2012
Decade of Access to Congress
The SVS PAC is celebrating its 10th anniversary. This is the only PAC that is totally focused on the interests of vascular surgeons and their practices. Those who make a contribution are invited to an exclusive PAC reception on Capitol Hill with members of Congress during the Vascular Annual Meeting on June 6. Also, PAC contributors will receive a PAC pin and a PAC luggage tag.
Contributions to the PAC enable SVS members and staff to attend fundraisers and personally interact with targeted members of Congress who determine the future of vascular surgery. 100 percent of your donation is used for contributions to candidates.
Emailed to SVS Members January 3, 2012
Medicare Pay Cuts Deferred for Two Months
Congress passed and President Obama signed legislation into law that defers until the end of February a scheduled 27 percent Medicare pay cut for physicians.
The law keeps Medicare physician payments at current levels.
In addition, a House-Senate conference committee has been established to negotiate a package that would extend the physician payment provision along with the payroll tax cut through the end of 2012.
SVS members sent over 750 letters to their members of Congress in support of a permanent solution to Medicare's physician payment system for physicians.
Thanks for your effort !
Emailed to SVS Members December 5, 2011
Urgent: Contact Your Congressional Members Today
The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula to determine Medicare physician payment has been problematic for years. Congress has intervened 12 times since 2002 to prevent SGR pay cuts and the 2012 Medicare payment cut is estimated to be 27 percent.
When the Super Committee failed to produce a deficit reduction package, Congress missed an opportunity to stabilize the Medicare program and permanently repeal the SGR formula. Now Congress has only four weeks to prevent a huge Medicare reduction on January 1.
It is extremely important for you to contact your Congressional Representative and two Senators about this issue. We know that fatigue can set in when we ask time after time to contact Congress, but Congress has been unable to accomplish much lately. It they do not act, we lose. Urge your elected representatives to block the January reduction by doing the following:
• Accessing the letter posted on the SVS web site;
• Editing the letter regarding how this issue impacts you and your patients;
• Providing your address so members know you are a constituent;
• Clicking “Send Message”.
We are all frustrated by this issue, but we need your immediate action. We also thank all the SVS members who have responded in the past by contacting their Congressional members about the broken Medicare SGR system.
Emailed to SVS Members November 21, 2011
SVS Active Member of the IPAB Repeal Coalition
SVS Washington, DC staff is actively lobbying for the repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) with other members of the IPAB Repeal Coalition by meeting with many House of Representatives’ members who have not co-sponsored the Medicare Decisions Accountability Act, H.R. 452.
The bill’s sponsor is Representative Roe, MD (R-TN) and there are presently 210 bipartisan House members who are co-sponsors.
In addition, SVS signed onto a letter (LINK) to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the Super Committee that requests the repeal of IPAB as part of its deficit reduction package. The package is scheduled to be completed by November 23.
Emailed to SVS Members October 19, 2011
Contact Your Congressional Members Today
As you know, using the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula to determine Medicare physician payment has been problematic for many years. Since 2002, Congress has intervened 12 times to prevent additional cuts from being imposed. The 2012 cut is estimated to be 29.5 percent.
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction or Super-Committee, which has a deadline of November 23 to produce a deficit reduction package of $1.2 trillion has an opportunity to solve the SGR problem by including the elimination of the SGR. However, this must be paid-for by offsets - the estimated cost is $300 billion over 10 years.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has recommended that $200 billion of these cuts come from physicians with specialists sustaining cuts of 5.9 percent for three years followed by seven years of freezes.
It is extremely important for you to contact your Congressional Representative and two Senators. Urge them to support the elimination of SGR to avoid a 29.5 percent physician payment cut in 2012 but to oppose the MedPAC recommendation for how to pay for this by doing the following:
• Editing the letter to add personal examples regarding how this issue impacts you and your patients;
• Providing Sender Information;
• Clicking "Send Message".
For additional legislative information, contact Pamela Phillips
pphillips@vascularsociety.org or telephone at 202-787-1220. For technical questions, contact Sue Crosson-Knutson
scknutson@vascularsociety.orgor telephone at 312-334-2311.