Prevent Medicare cuts from taking effect

Daniel M. Duncanson

Looming Medicare fee cuts will further stress health care in our region, as well as in others across the nation.

Because the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic SIMEDHealth and lots of different well being care suppliers have labored tirelessly to supply take care of our communities. Our SIMEDHealth workforce of 125 Florida licensed well being care suppliers and 514 workers impress me every day with their dedication, ingenuity and sheer stamina.

We’ve bodily, emotionally and financially weathered the battle on our unrelenting foe. However now, we’re going through an extra heedless problem, not from the virus, however from Congress.

Looming Medicare price cuts will additional stress well being care in our area, in addition to in others throughout the nation. At this vital time Congress must act very quickly to stop these cuts from taking impact.

All Medicare suppliers are going through upwards of 10% cuts in reimbursements beginning in January 2022. For SIMEDHealth this might have a big impression.

Much like different industries, the pandemic already has inflected a toll on SIMEDHealth and different well being care teams, and our sufferers. Like many employers, we face a scarcity of certified labor which impacts are capacity to broadly provide providers on the pre-pandemic degree. Now we have incurred the elevated prices related to persevering with to guard our workers and sufferers

These potential Medicare cuts would additional exacerbate the monetary pressures going through all well being care suppliers. How can this added hardship be prevented? Congress has to take motion, and do it quickly!

All of these items will go into place Jan. 1, except Congress acts:

1) Since 2013 Congress has licensed the automated discount of all Medicare funds by 2%. This Medicare sequestration was halted in April 2020 in the course of the public well being emergency; nonetheless, it’s slated to run out Dec. 31.

2) The Medicare conversion issue is a multiplier used for Medicare to calculate the reimbursement price for each Half B billed declare. The conversion issue is scheduled to be diminished by 3.75% in 2022.

3) The Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 requires all new legislative expenditures, taxes or charges taken collectively should not improve projected deficits. As a consequence of the pandemic-related aid spending since March 2020, computerized 4% reductions within the price schedule will happen.

We aren’t alone in our concern about these potential cuts. A latest survey by the American Medical Group Affiliation, the commerce affiliation representing multispecialty medical teams and built-in well being care techniques like SIMEDHealth, discovered the potential impression of the cuts embrace hiring freezes, discount in workers, elimination of providers and never accepting new Medicare sufferers

Entry to care and well timed responses to inquiries are two of the widespread complaints well being care suppliers hear from their sufferers. Medicare beneficiaries in varied areas of our area and throughout the nation are already considerably restricted of their entry to dependable well being care. How will shrinking reimbursements for many who try to supply improved entry, providers and responsiveness incentivize them to proceed to take action?

So as to add additional monetary stress, some in Congress are contemplating further cuts to the Medicare Benefit program, an more and more common selection of Medicare beneficiaries. At SIMEDHealth Medicare Benefit packages account for 40-50% of our Medicare sufferers. These potential Medicare Benefit cuts can be along with the above 9.75% reductions to conventional Medicare.

All of those Medicare cuts create a possible speedy untenable state of affairs for your entire U.S. well being care supply system. At SIMEDHealth, these cuts will threaten our capacity to proceed our push in the direction of excellence for our sufferers and our communities. It’s by no means a superb time to have income minimize by 10%, however to take action when SIMEDHealth and different well being care teams proceed to battle by means of the results of COVID-19 and variant strains is a congressional slap in our faces.

To help our continued capacity to supply care to our sufferers and communities, we’ve a easy request of Congress. Cease these cuts earlier than they go into impact! It’ll take years for the pandemic-related results on employers and well being care organizations to get better. We’d like monetary stability, not cuts, to outlive within the current.