Complete Story
12/11/2020
Take Action Now to Avert Medicare Cuts
The OOS, AAO, OSMA and numerous other state and national specialty societies are urging congress to take action to prevent cuts to Medicare physician reimbursement in 2021.
In the last week, the OOS has contacted every member of the Ohio Congressional delegation to take action before they conclude business for the year. We have heard some encouraging responses but need to keep the pressure on until a fix is passed. See the latest information and action steps from the AAO below and contact your congressman today.
This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced the final 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. Despite our continued advocacy, CMS has decided to move forward with devastating cuts to Medicare payments for ophthalmology and other surgical and physician specialties.
If these cuts take effect, ophthalmology services are facing cuts ranging from 6% to 10% starting Jan. 1.
Time is running out for Congress to step in and stop the harmful cuts to Medicare payments.
The Academy is working with the American College of Surgeons and the Surgical Care Coalition to ramp up pressure on Congress to act to avert the cuts before the end of the year. Specifically, we are urging Congress to take the following actions:
- Hold physicians and other providers harmless from CMS' E/M policy by passing legislation such as HR 8702; and
- Require CMS to apply the increased E/M adjustment to all 10- and 90-day global surgical payments by passing S 4932.
You can support our efforts by using the Academy’s advocacy tool to contact your representatives and urge them to support HR 8702 and S 4932. It only takes two minutes, but it will pay dividends in showing how devastating these cuts will be to patients.
