Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Bush budget leaves doctors out in the cold, ACP warns.

President Bush's 2008 budget proposed $70 billion in cuts to Medicare spending. Though he didn't propose any new cuts to physician payments, he also didn't suggest any ways to avoid the roughly 8- to 10-percent pay cut facing your office next year.

The president's failure to include funds in the budget to avert this cut will "accelerate the collapse of primary care, create access problems, and manufacture obstacles to fundamental reform of physician payment policies," said the American College of Physicians (ACP). The ACP disagreed with Bush's plans to cut the State Children's Health Insurance Program, but did applaud an $11-million pay boost to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Speaking to reporters, acting Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Leslie Norwalk said CMS will be discussing ways to avoid next year's cut with Congress and the medical community. "Clearly it's not an inexpensive fix," she noted. She predicted "lively" discussion on this issue in the coming year.