Advocacy & Practice Updates — Advocacy & Practice
Congress Rebuffs Two Opportunities to Provide Physician Payment Relief
As we reported, a stopgap bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year emerged early last week, but lacked a provision to end cuts to the Medicare physician fee schedule. It passed the House on a slim, party-line vote and initially Democrats balked at providing the votes needed to reach the necessary 60-vote margin in the Senate. In the end, they were not able to extract concessions from Republicans, however, and some Democrats eventually voted for the measure to keep the government open.
Separate from the funding bill on Friday, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) attempted to advance a standalone bill with all the healthcare provisions—including a physician payment fix--that were left out of the original year-end bill in December. Under Senate procedural rules, it would have had to pass by unanimous consent, but failed because it was opposed by Senator, Rick Scott (R-FL).
Despite these setbacks, ASRS and the rest of the medical community will continue to advocate that payment relief be addressed in other legislation. Members should be ready to contact their legislators at the necessary time. ASRS will keep you updated.
(Published 3.18.25)