We need your help to urge Congress to repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) once and for all. We are all well aware that inaction or “kicking the can down the road” as Congress has done for years leaves doctors stuck with a 30 percent cut in Medicare pay beginning January 1.

Early results from a survey of ISMA members currently available on our website tell us that if the cut occurs, just over one third of those responding will consider not accepting new Medicare patients. Nearly 45 percent say they will opt out of Medicare and require direct payment. While these percentages sound large, our sample is small. We need more of you to respond here.

MedPAC proposal not following doctors’ orders
In early September, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission issued its own recommendation to repeal the SGR using a broad range of budget offsets. The proposal calls for a freeze for primary care and 5.9 percent cut for all of the other specialties for each of the next three years followed by a seven year freeze. The proposal will be voted on at MedPAC’s Oct. 6-7 meeting.

AMA President Peter Carmel, M.D., says MedPAC’s recommendations are misguided.

The new cuts are inconsistent with MedPAC’s previous recommendations to stop cuts to physicians who care for Medicare patients. The AMA and the ISMA oppose the MedPAC proposal for offsetting the cost of repealing the SGR. The combination of payment cuts and freezes it suggests will reduce patient access and derail delivery innovations just beginning that are key to lowering health care costs.

Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction action
The ISMA has joined the AMA and 117 other state and national medical specialty societies in a sign-on letter calling for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to include the SGR repeal in its final legislation. The “supercommittee” held its first hearing Sept. 13. Their recommendations are due by Nov. 23. You can encourage the committee to repeal the SGR here.

Urge Medicare fix

We are now less than two weeks from the election. Whatever the outcome on Nov. 2, health care reform will feel the impact. Pundits say the election may change the majority party in the U.S House and Senate with the opportunity to improve health system reform through new legislation or to control funding of health care. That’s why the ISMA is urging patients and physicians to “Vote for Your Health.” 

Whatever happens in the election, we physicians will still face a 30 percent cut in Medicare payments between Dec. 1 and Jan. 1. Our patients are largely unaware of this. The lack of a fix for the flawed Medicare payment formula and the cuts that threaten access to care for Medicare recipients was one of the biggest disappointments of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

While we can hope that the lame-duck Congress would do one last noble act and delay the cuts through 2011, it’s probably not going to happen.

So this calls for action by both physicians and our patients right now. The incumbents are back in Indiana. The candidates seeking to unseat them are campaigning today in a neighborhood near you.

Here’s what I suggest. You are just a click away from health reform information, including stats on the Medicare fix, talking points, and a patient handout. (Find the materials here.)

Give the patient handout to your Medicare patients. Talk to those patients you’ve known for a long time. Consider inviting them to visit your local candidates along with you.

What is the ISMA doing? We’ve already let your concerns be known to the Congress. And we’ve prepared the materials for you to display in your office during this month. The candidates need to hear the message from voters in their own districts.

Tell the candidates no matter what side of the health reform issue they are on, the Medicare payment formula needs to be fixed so your patients can receive the care they need.