AMA President James Rohack, MD, announced his association will support passage of the House of Representatives' health reform bill -- which is set for a vote on Saturday. Dr. Rohack says the AMA will also push for a permanent Medicare pay fix that's not found in the bill.
The "doc fix," which proposes to remove the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula from the calculation of the conversion factor in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, is found in HR 3961. Passage of the doc fix bill is likely to come after approval of the health reform bill. Exactly when is tough to tell.
The controversial House reform bill (HR 3962) contains a number of Medicare-Part-B-related items, but one that sticks out is the expansion of the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). The bill would extend the PQRI program and bonuses equal to 2% of your Medicare charges to 2012. Currently, it's scheduled to end after 2010.
Congress also wants CMS to develop an informal appeals process for PQRI by 2011. Currently, there's no appeals process in PQRI.