Can the infrastructure bill serve as vehicle to prevent Medicare fee cuts to physicians?

In a letter to the leaders of Congress yesterday, April 27, 63 medical groups representing more than one million healthcare providers thanked Congress for its past efforts in curtailing reductions to physician reimbursement and requested continued protection - perhaps in the infrastructure funding bill - against expected cuts in the next calendar year's Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.

Last year - with the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 - Congress acted to avert large physician fee cuts for many non-primary care services resulting from the application of budget neutrality to increases in reimbursement for evaluation and management services that were to go into effect this year. That Congressional action mitigated most of the payment reductions by temporarily adding an additional 3.75% to overall physician payments - but only for one year. The physician organizations and other medical groups now request Congress continue that additional funding beyond the end of this year.