Payment Update Threatens Practice Stability
Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed rule. Your ACOI team will analyze the proposed rule to identify policies that could impact osteopathic internists, their practices and their patients. Read our statement.
For CY2024, the proposed conversation factor — the basic starting point for calculating Medicare payments — is $32.7476, a decrease of 3.36% from the CY2023 PFS conversion factor of $33.8872.
The proposed conversion factor takes into account the statutorily set update to the conversion factor for CY2024 of 0% and the 1.25% positive payment adjustment made by Congress. The positive adjustment, however, is not enough to offset the 2.17% cut triggered by requirements of budget neutrality leading to a net reduction.
Preventing a payment cut will require intervention by Congress before the end of this year. This Spring, ACOI sent a letter to congressional lawmakers asking for support of legislation that would provide physicians an annual inflation-based payment update based on the Medicare Economic Index, which CMS projects to be 4.5% in 2024. When adjusted for inflation in practice costs, Medicare physician pay has effectively declined 26 percent from 2001 to 2023 — an unsustainable trajectory that threatens beneficiary access to care.
ACOI will develop comments in response to this and other proposals in the rule. Please refer to the following documents for more information: