APA, along with the AMA and some 40 other medical organizations, is urging the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC) to revise its proposals for reforming the “sustainable growth rate” (SGR) component of Medicare's formula for determining physician reimbursement for treating Medicare patients. In September, MedPAC agreed to proposals for reforming the SGR, but APA and the other groups say the advisory committee did not go far enough. “[W]e cannot support this plan in its present form because it retains many of the SGR’s flaws, undermines physicians’ ability to participate in payment and delivery reforms, and calls for payment rates that the Commission itself has previously said could reduce Medicare beneficiaries’ access to medical care,” the letter states. For coverage about the SGR and Medicare payment issues, see Psychiatric News at http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/8/6.2.full, http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/40/17/5.1.full, and http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/42/24/4.1.full. To read the letter to MedPAC about the SGR see www.psych.org/MainMenu/AdvocacyGovernmentRelations/GovernmentRelations/Letter-to-MedPAC-Oppose.aspx?FT=.pdf.(Image: Kheng Guan Toh/Shutterstock.com)
