Medicare's Declining Payments to Physicians

Abstract

The promising efforts of the Bush administration and Congress to fix Medicare's troubled relationship with physicians have suffered a sharp setback. On the basis of a formula prescribed by law, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented an across-the-board reduction in Medicare fee-for-service payments that averaged 4.9 percent and took effect January 1.1 The unwillingness of Congress and the Bush administration to provide a quick fix for the payment reduction was an early omen of the challenging days that lie ahead for Medicare and the 550,000 physicians who provide care to the program's 39 million disabled or elderly . . .