You would win big-time if you’re a primary care practice, but lose big-time if you’re a specialist, under a new proposal by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). The group has a budget-neutral, “paid-for” solution that repeals the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula once and for all, saving all physicians from the annual cliffhanger Medicare pay cut that Congress always steps in to prevent.

President Obama said he is willing to make cuts to Medicare but only if there are tax hikes for the super wealthy and will veto any bill that slashes entitlements and fails to raise taxes, he announced in his deficit reduction speech Sept. 19 from the White House’s Rose Garden.

The speech was an effort to lay the framework for the recently established super-committee in charge of trimming over a trillion dollars from the federal deficit in the next decade who began talks in early September.

“Either we ask seniors to pay more for Medicare, or we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes; we can’t do both,” Obama said.

You can add new, state-level recovery audit contractors (RACs) to your list of worries starting in 2012. All states are required to implement Medicaid RACs by Jan. 1 or lose out on federal funding, according to a CMS final rule posted Sept. 14. The new state-level RACs will be paid by states, operating under the same “contingency fee” model that the federal RACs use – i.e. they are paid based on cash recovered from you and your peers.

HHS wants you and your peers to give your patients more access to theirmedical records electronically as a way to improve care as part of an industry-wide push to give responsibility to the patient’s role in their health care, announced Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at HHS’ first-ever Consumer Health IT Summit on Sept. 12 in Washington.

You would be wise to save documentation – in whatever format you can – that shows you were honest and accurate in attesting to meaningful use for the Medicare electronic health record (EHR) incentive program, which is currently doling out money pretty much on the honor system, CMS says. Now the agency has issued its strongest statement yet on the need to preserve documentation for the future meaningful use auditing program.