June 18, 2010

The Senate will likely adjourn for this week without passing a fix to the Medicare physician payment update. Although the Senate is getting closer to securing a deal to provide a temporary fix to the Medicare physician payment cut, today was the deadline on a temporary hold on claims processing that CMS had imposed. The physician payment fix measure is part of large tax extenders bill that includes extensions of unemployment insurance, COBRA health insurance coverage extension and state Medicaid assistance. Late on Friday, it emerged that a bipartisan deal to provide a positive payment update until November 30, 2010 is in the process of being finalized, but will have to be approved by the full House following Senate passage. Once the payment fix measure is enacted into law, Medicare claims for the month of June will be reprocessed if the submitted charge is higher than the new payment rate. If submitted charges are lower than the new rate, physicians should call the contractor.

 The Senate reached agreement this afternoon on a temporary fix to the Medicare physician payment cut and successfully passed the bill. Senate leaders pulled the physician fix measure from the original vehicle - a tax extenders bill - and passed the bill on a unanimous vote. The new measure, which must still be passed by the House next week, provides a 2.2% physician payment update for six months, from June 1 through November 30, 2010.