Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy:
As members of the Congressional Black Caucus, we want to thank you for your efforts to ensure
access to health care for patients and to ensure that physicians and specialists around the country
have been able to continue operations during this pandemic. However, we are becoming
increasingly concerned about looming cuts facing many specialists, which are expected to go into
effect beginning on January 1, 2021.
On December 1, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) published the final
rule for the CY2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, which increased rates for the office-based
evaluation and management (E/M) code set in CY2021. Due to the requirement for budget
neutrality, this will result in sizable cuts for over thirty healthcare specialties. While we are
supportive of the increases for the office-based E/M code set, the resulting cuts are ill-conceived
in the middle of a pandemic. Even without these cuts, too many practices are struggling, even as
patients need access to health care now more than ever.
Read full letter here
