The new “fiscal cliff” legislation hailed by some as a “one-year doc fix” of the scheduled 26.5% sustainable growth rate (SGR) cut that was scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2013, has passed the Senate and House as part of the American Taxpayer Relief Act ( HR 8 ) goes to President Obama for his likely signature.
But was this “one-year doc fix” really a fix?
Not at all.
In fact, once again Congress has failed to resolve the ever-present sustainable growth rate cuts that repetitively surface year after year by kicking the proverbial can down the road another year.
The cost of the one year patch will be $25.1 billion dollars over 10 years and will be paid for almost entirely by health care cuts in other areas.
- Hospitals (increasingly doctor-employers now, remember?) will see audits of their billings increase as efforts to recoup some $10.5 billion of “overcoding” charges are seen as the largest source of revenue for the one-year “fix.”
- Hospitals will also see an extension of lower Medicaid payments to hospitals that treat a high number of uninsured or low-income beneficiaries, known as “disproportionate share hospitals” to find savings of about $4.2 billion.
- Another $4.9 billion offset will be applied to the lowered bundled payments given for patients with end-stage renal disease – some of the sickest people receiving services from Medicare.
