Advocacy & Practice Updates — Advocacy & Practice
ASRS Calls on CMS to Prevent Steep Cuts to Surgery in Comments on the 2026 Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule
ASRS issued strong opposition to key proposals in the 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule that would significantly cut reimbursement for retina surgery. In comments submitted on the rule, ASRS urged CMS not to finalize reductions to practice expense or institute an arbitrary “efficiency adjustment.” Thank you to all the ASRS members who supported our efforts and provided input or submitted comments directly—your contributions made a difference.
Specifically, ASRS disputed CMS’ rationale for its policies that would reduce payment. CMS pointed to the growing percentage of physicians who are employed by hospitals to justify a proposed reduction in indirect practice expense reimbursement—which covers overhead expenses like administrative staff and utilities—for any facility-based service because those expenses would be covered by the hospitals’ facility fee and thus duplicative. ASRS pushed back noting that most retina specialists are in private practice and would lose reimbursement for maintaining their offices when they performed surgery.
We also disagreed with CMS’ assumption that all physicians have become faster at providing care and should have payment reduced by an across-the-board efficiency reduction of 2.5%. We noted that evidence suggests patient complexity can increase surgical times, so retina surgeons are already not being fully compensated for the work they are doing. Furthermore, we objected to CMS’ use of the Medical Economic Index (MEI) productivity adjustment as the basis for this efficiency reduction, since physicians do not receive updates based on this inflation measurement.
We noted that the combination of these two proposals will further devalue surgical services and may worsen current challenges retina specialists face in accessing OR time. We noted the strain this will put not only on private practices, but larger, academic practices that will be overwhelmed with patients—some having to travel many hours just to access care.
ASRS also joined with the Alliance of Specialty Medicine in comments on the rule.
The final rule is expected to be released in November, and policies will be effective January 1, 2026.
(Published 9.17.25)