This issue brief addresses the topic of global payments for surgeons under the Medicare physician fee schedule (PFS): what they are, how they work (or don’t work) and why CMS seems so intent on doing away with them.
The Fourth of July can be counted on for two things: fireworks, and Medicare payment rules, the defining documents that sort DC health policy folk into two camps. On one side, there are the Hill staffers and lobbyists who are trying to strategically plot a path through the appropriations quagmire to get to August recess. Then there are the regulatory staff whose year has just started.
A few weeks ago, we reported that the publication of the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) proposed rule, and specifically CMS’s big reveal of its mandatory Transforming Episode Accountability Model (TEAM) payment proposal, would awaken some of the physician payment policy wonks from a briefer than usual slumber. These past few weeks have shown signs of life, even in some unexpected places.
A conversation with Peggy Tighe, Principal, Powers Law
I’m so excited to share my recent conversation with Cancer Fashionista, Melissa Berry, on her podcast, Dear Cancer, I’m Beautiful.
You may have heard about the Inflation Reduction Act or changes regarding the Medicare program’s ability to negotiate prescription drug prices. Join me as I host fellow colleagues for a discussion about what these changes mean for you.
I really wasn’t going to write about the shutdown threat but then I remembered one of the last times this happened: I ended up renewing a childhood friendship in a heated Facebook exchange. So today is about something with which we all have way too much experience, but which requires only a basic understanding of civics, current events, and a country with an unimaginative addiction to drama and self-sabotage…
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that making sure doctors get paid enough isn’t on many people’s end of year to-do lists. Why should we care? In my opinion, we should care, but not because I am desperate to get in a battle of who has the prettiest line chart depicting how much doctors are (or are not) being paid. I think we should care because most people have no idea what we are (and are not) paying for in our healthcare system – and that makes all the difference.
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