Medicare Payment Reform Returns to Center Stage on Capitol Hill

Tomorrow, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing examining the future of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) and physician payment reform.

The ACS is actively engaged in this debate and continuing to fight aggressively to protect patient access to surgical care and stop continued cuts to work RVUs.

The ACS will continue to deploy an evidence-based strategy to fight against policies that devalue surgical care. An example includes this Health Affairs Forefront article, "Modernizing the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?,” published last week. Authored by several ACS surgeon leaders, it highlights that shifting dollars to primary care does not guarantee better health outcomes, and it risks limiting access to lifesaving specialty care.

At the same time, the ACS remains focused on addressing prior authorization barriers that continue delaying care and interfering with surgeons’ ability to make decisions in the best interest of their patients.

In this video, ACS Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Health Policy Christian Shalgian outlines why these issues matter to surgeons and surgical patients and why your advocacy is critical right now.

Surgeons today are caring for increasingly older, sicker, and more medically complex patients, while also facing growing administrative burdens that pull them away from patient care. These policies are making it harder for surgeons to focus on what matters most: caring for patients. That is why advocacy is essential.

Visit SurgeonsVoice.org today and send a message to your members of Congress urging them to stop harmful Medicare reimbursement cuts and address prior authorization abuses that interfere with patient care.

In addition, review the ACS Medicare Physician Payment Reform web page to learn more about this critical topic, and make sure to check back on the page after the hearing and into the future to see how this issue and the ACS response evolves.