Dear Chairmen and Ranking Members:
The Alliance of Specialty Medicine (the “Alliance”) represents more than 100,000 specialty physicians
and is dedicated to the development of sound federal health care policy that fosters patient access to
the highest quality specialty care. As the year comes to a close, the Alliance writes to urge Congress to
quickly address the unresolved need to provide positive updates to the Medicare Physician Fee
Schedule (MPFS) Conversion Factor.
As you know, under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), beginning in
calendar year (CY) 2020, payments under the MPFS are slated to receive 0 percent updates for six years,
until 2026. In all likelihood, due to additional statutory provisions that require budget neutrality, the 0
percent updates will translate to reductions in the MPFS conversion factor – meaning payments to
Medicare physicians will decrease over the six-year period.
Even before the 0 percent updates scheduled for 2020 through 2025, Medicare physician
reimbursement has failed to keep up with inflation. At the same time, physicians have been
experiencing increasing compliance and reporting burden under the Quality Payment Program (QPP),
which encompasses MACRA’s value-based purchasing reforms. Indeed, the Medicare Trustees project
that physician costs will continue to increase, on average, by 2.2 percent per year over the long term –
well in excess of the payment updates in place for that same period.
Read full letter here
