Not only would your revenue flow stand to benefit if the five-year temporary primary care physician fee increase called for in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became permanent, but so would the overall Medicare program, according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund.
The study, available here, takes the five-year 10% increase in primary care visits that started in 2011, and simulates the effects of making this health reform provision permanent. The result: Medicare’s total per-beneficiary spending would decline by 1.9%.
The study’s authors attribute this savings mainly to an increase in primary care E/M visits which over time would lead to a decrease in patients’ pricey hospital and post-acute care stays.
Studies like this could sway Congress to make that temporary ACA provision permanent, as the bill’s writers originally intended it. After all, how is primary care supposed to attract more Med students with a fee increase that will expire by the time they’ve completed their residency?
Then again, the status of all ACA provisions – temporary and permanent – remains uncertain until the Supreme Court rules on the law’s constitutionality.