The time is upon us to contact our representatives in the 111th United States Congress and remind them that November is coming, and we will let our votes speak for us! At this time, a greater than 21% reduction in reimbursement is scheduled to begin on December 1, 2010 for Medicare Part B Services. As was discussed at great length here, this is a remedy for a disaster.
I encourage all readers to click this link to send a message to your own elected official. If you are so inclined, I welcome anyone to copy/paste from the open letter below to make the process more efficient for you.
Spread this message as far and as quickly as you can: email, Facebook, Twitter, SMS…how the message gets out is not nearly as important as the impact our message can have if it is heard by as many people as possible!
An open letter to Congressional Leaders:
August 28, 2010
On June 24, 2010, you voted in favor of the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, preventing a devastating permanent reduction of 21.3% in physician reimbursement for Medicare services. Unfortunately, the legislation passed is only effective through November 30, 2010, when a greater than 21% reduction in Medicare reimbursement is once again scheduled to be implemented.
The cuts, as currently projected, impact all health professionals including physicians, nurse practitioners, physical and occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, physician assistants, chiropractors, psychologists and more. Each of these practitioners usually employ a support staff including receptionists, medical assistants, billing specialists and other support staff. We do not believe it is likely that practitioners will be able to continue under their current business models with a greater than 20% reduction in reimbursement over the next 20 years, while rent continues to climb, inflation rises and malpractice prices continue to increase. Instead, businesses will fail, directly as a result of a precipitous drop in reimbursement. One needs not be a governmental research analyst to predict the cascade of events that follows including medical field unemployment/layoffs, fewer businesses open to meet the demands of prospective patients, long lines with longer waits to see a clinician. In many cases, clinicians will simply stop participating with Medicare and down size to accept only privately insured or cash pay patients.
As a direct consequence, there will be less choice for the Medicare patient as they have fewer offices with their doors open, and even fewer offices that participate with Medicare Part B insurance. The clinics/businesses that remain available to the Medicare patient will be swamped with too many patients to treat, and too little time. Regardless of the clinicians experience or good intentions, quality of care will most certainly suffer.
This is not acceptable. Our Medicare beneficiaries deserve better. Please be a voice in the United States Congress against the implementation of Medicare reimbursement reduction in December 2010, America’s seniors need your support and initiative to maintain the availability of high quality care that they are entitled to.
Sincerely,
Keith P. Waldron PT, DPT
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