Proposed 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Threatens Patient Access to Surgical Care

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is again calling for cuts in Medicare physician payment rates, jeopardizing seniors’ access to critical treatments and procedures.

In its proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for calendar year 2023 released last week, CMS proposed cuts of 4.42%.

A short time later, the ACS-led Surgical Care Coalition issued a press release urging Congress to address systemic challenges so that these reductions could be stopped, and ACS Executive Director Patricia L. Turner, MD, MBA, FACS, sent an email to all US members alerting them to some of the actions that the College is taking to battle these cuts.

“It is clear that the Medicare physician payment system is broken,” she wrote. “Please know that the ACS will continue to fight aggressively for you and our patients. We are working to both stop the cuts and stabilize the payment system in the short term and reform the system in the long term.”

The ACS has already engaged with key congressional leaders, emphasizing the need for congressional action this year to stop the Medicare payment cuts. The College also will provide CMS with extensive comments on the hundreds of specific proposals included in its 2,066-page rule.  

In addition, Dr. Turner said that she will reach out again to members in the coming week with a series of concrete actions that they can take to help stop these cuts.

Additional information about these calls to action will be included in the ACS Advocacy Brief, other publications, and ACS social media.