Practice Management Alert

At nearly the last minute, Congress votes to boost conversion factor.

Although the government appeared poised to take a big bite out of your Medicare payments, you have another two months before you need to worry about losing pay. That's because the 27 percent Medicare pay cuts that practices have feared since last fall were once again kicked to the curb by Congress, resulting in a new, but most likely, temporary Medicare Physician Fee Schedule conversion factor of $34.0376 through Feb. 29 of this year.

On Dec. 23, the House followed the Senate's lead in voting to halt the Medicare pay cut for two months, which will basically freeze Medicare pay close to the rates of 2011 through the end of February.

Don't Think Your Reimbursement Is Completely Saved

Although Medicare pay is now set to drop on March 1, the AMA is hopeful that Congress will find a longer-term solution before then.

"With this brief reprieve from the massive 27 percent cut to Medicare payments, Congress now has to enact a real and fiscally responsible solution to this sorry cycle of scheduled cuts and short-term patches that compromises access to care for patients and drives up costs for taxpayers," AMA President Peter W. Carmel, MD, said in a statement. "Members of Congress need to use this time to work in a bipartisan manner to provide long-term stability for seniors, military families and the physicians who care for them."

RVU cuts took effect: Keep in mind that the Congressional vote only adjusted the conversion factor for 2012 (which had been set to drop by 27 percent on Jan. 1). Other changes slated for Jan. 1 -- for instance, relative value unit (RVU) adjustments printed in the 2012 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule -- did take effect, as did other changes such as the multiple procedure payment cuts for diagnostic imaging and changes in the geographic practice cost indices (GPCI).

Keep an eye on Medical Office Billing & Collections Alert for future updates on how Congress plans to address the looming 27 percent cut.