Home Health & Hospice Week

Keep a wary eye on Congress. CMS will publish in the Nov. 29 Federal Register a 2011 physician fee schedule that includes a 30 percent pay cut, which Congress will surely overturn -- perhaps with funding from your Medicare payments. In a Nov. 4 Cabinet meeting, President Obama "stressed that preventing these potentially disastrous cuts must be one of our top priorities," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in remarks in front of the Association of American Medical Colleges Annual Meeting Nov. 8. Effective Dec. 1, last year's "doc fix" package expires and physicians' Medicare pay is set to drop by more than 23 percent. And 2011 payments are due to drop even further starting Jan. 1. "While Congress has provided temporary relief from these reductions every year since 2003, a long-term solution is critical," the fee schedule notes. "We are committed to permanently reforming the Medicare payment formula." Whether the [...]