Points
- The 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule proposal has been released by the CMS
- Standouts include a decrease in conversion factor for physicians and changes to cardiologist payments through updates to factors like work, practice expense, and malpractice RVUs
- The new ruling emphasizes the need to work with other medical societies in ensuring that patients are cared for while enacting advocacy efforts like physician payment reform
Summary
On July 7th of this year, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposal for the 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rule, which outlines Medicare payments and physician provisions for next year. There, physicians will notice a conversion factor decrease (from $34.6062 to $33.0775) starting January 1st, 2023. Additionally, CMS estimates place cardiologist payments to decrease by about 1% between 2022 and 2023; these will be visible through changes in work, practice expenses, and malpractice relative value units (RVUs).
Overall, the news presents a worrying trend of long-term financial instability in the Medicare physician payment system, all springing from factors such as conversion factor cuts, statutory cuts, and payment updates that inadequately account for practice cost inflation. All these, in turn, create long-term financial instability in the Medicare physician payment system. While efforts from the previous year thanks to other medical societies managed to stall these cuts, there is now a need to further emphasize efforts in ensuring that patient access to Medicare-participating physicians will not be interrupted.
Since this news has come to light, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) has aligned with others in organized medicine and the American Medical Associaton (AMA) to create a set of principles that will guide advocacy efforts towards Medicare physician payment reform.
The ruling can be viewed here, while further details can be read through the ACC portal here.
Link to the article: https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2022/07/07/21/18/CMS-Releases-Medicare-Physician-Fee-Schedule-Proposed-Rule
References ACC. (2022, July 8). CMS Releases Proposed 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule. American College of Cardiology; American College of Cardiology. https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2022/07/07/21/18/CMS-Releases-Medicare-Physician-Fee-Schedule-Proposed-Rule Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (2022). Medicare and Medicaid Programs: Calendar Year 2023 Payment Policies under the Physician Fee Schedule and Other Changes to Part B Payment Policies, Medicare Shared Savings Program Requirements, etc. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2022-14562.pdf
