The need for Congress to act quickly and decisively to fix the broken Medicare payment system cannot be overstated. The fiscal stability of physician practices and the long-term viability of our nation’s health care system hangs in the balance.

Medicare payment reform is an issue the ISMA has advocated for and is the first pillar of the AMA Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians. Our needs include immediate relief from annual funding cuts and fundamental changes to Medicare reimbursement centered on simplicity, predictability, relevance and alignment, first outlined in the AMA’s reform principles issued last fall.

The current Medicare physician system reflects none of those principles and needs to change.

In response, the AMA and ISMA are strongly supporting the Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act (H.R. 2474), a bipartisan measure now pending in the 118th Congress, which would provide the crucial link between the Medicare physician payment schedule and the Medicare Economic Index (MEI), and finally put physicians on an equal fiscal footing with other entities drawing Medicare payment.

Physicians can contact their representatives in Congress through this AMA portal to urge passage of H.R. 2474.

For those physicians who are meeting virtually or in person with their legislators and staff, a variety of resource material is available at FixMedicareNow.org, including plain language explanations of the need for automatic, annual inflation-based payment updates, reforms to budget neutrality policies, and simplifying the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

The AMA and the ISMA intend to fight tirelessly for a financially stable and wholly predictable Medicare physician reimbursement model that protects physicians and their patients. We urge you to join us in urging Congress to ensure that Medicare continues to fulfill its crucial role in safeguarding the health and financial well-being of millions of Americans.