Medicare SGR and GPCI Bill Clears Committee July 31, 2013 Advocacy, Health Care Reform, Medicare, Payment California GPCI Fi, California Medicare locality reform, DocFix, GPCI, H.R. 2810, SGR, Sustainable Growth Rate 0 This morning the House Energy & Commerce Committee voted unanimously to approve H.R. 2810, the “Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act,” by a vote of 51-0. This legislation repeals the Sustainable Growth Rate formula (SGR) and provides for a five year period of stability while a new quality reporting program is developed. The bill provides for updates of 0.5% and the ability to earn additional updates under the new reporting requirement beginning in 2019. Also included in this bill is a California Medicare locality reform (known as the “California GPCI Fix”) which will update payments for the urban physicians in Locality 99 and Locality 3 while holding the rural physicians in these localities harmless from payment cuts. SFMS is pleased with this herculean effort to move Medicare SGR legislation on a bipartisan basis as well as update the outdated Medicare physician payment localities. The Medicare SGR and GPCI Locality issues will now be taken up by the House Ways & Means Committee as well as the Senate Finance Committee. SFMS extends its thanks to Representatives Waxman, Farr, Issa, and McCarthy who led the charge and Representatives Capps, Eshoo and Matsui who supported the bill in Committee. We would also like to thank Drs. Larry DeGhetaldi and Ned Bentley who ran numbers on a daily basis to guide and inform the negotiations. Click here to view a detailed summary on both the SGR and the Locality Reform. Comments are closed.
