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Home > Medical Professionals > Health Policy and Government Relations > Physician Payment > Medicare Physician Payment Update

Medicare Physician Payment Update

Dear SVS Member:

I wanted to let you know the good news regarding the 2008 Medicare physician payment update. On Wednesday, December 19, Congress passed a Medicare package before it adjourned for the holidays. The 10% Medicare physician pay cut included in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Final Rule was averted with a .5% increase for the first six months of 2008. The package also extends the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, which provides a 1.5% bonus for reporting quality measures for another six months and does not use additional imaging cuts to pay for the package. President Bush signed this into law on December 29, 2007.

Almost 800 letters were sent to Congressional members from SVS members, opposing a Medicare physician pay cut and imaging cuts, which were certainly a factor in getting a positive update for six months. Also, members of the SVS Health Policy Committee made personal visits to their members of Congress and staff in September on these two issues.

We will need to keep up the pressure in order to have another positive outcome for the rest of 2008. I urge you to contribute to the SVS PAC and continue to keep in contact with your members of Congress in order for SVS to be successful with this effort.

K. Wayne Johnston, MD
President, SVS