If Congress doesn’t take action by the end of this year, physicians face an 8.5% Medicare payment cut – an unsustainable number in the midst of inflation and rising practice costs. Physicians simply cannot afford to continue to operate under the current payment system, and we are running out of time to fix the problem.
We need you to take action today. While the AACU supports legislation designed to reduce this payment cut by 4.5%, this remedy does not go far enough in addressing the financial impact of continued payment cuts to physicians. When adjusted for inflation, Medicare physician payments have dropped by 22% from 2001 to 2021. These continued yearly reductions in reimbursements threaten both the financial stability of practices and our patients’ ability to access care.
The AACU believes that Congress needs to eliminate all payment cuts before the end of 2022, and we need you to take action:
- Look up your members of Congress and find their contact pages here.
- Copy and paste the message below and email it to your senators and representative. You can edit as necessary – any addition of personal stories is always an effective tool to get legislators’ attention!
Thank you for taking action today! If you have any questions, please contact Kristin Jimison, AACU Director of Legislative Affairs at [email protected].
Message to Members of Congress:
Dear (INSERT LEGISLATOR NAME),
As a constituent and urologist providing care in your district, I want to make you aware that on January 1, 2023, physicians face a devastating 8.5% Medicare payment cut due to regulatory changes finalized by CMS.
When adjusted for inflation, Medicare physician payments have dropped by 22% from 2001 to 2021 and continued yearly reductions in reimbursements not only threaten the financial stability of practices but also jeopardize patient access to care. Physicians are the only providers whose Medicare payments do not automatically receive an annual inflationary update, and we need relief now.
Partial reduction in payment cuts is a temporary stopgap that will not mitigate the long-term threat to the financial stability of our practice – or the threat to patients’ access to care. I am asking you to take immediate action in the lame duck session to stop the entire, devastating 8.5% cut to physician Medicare payments.
Thank you for supporting our country’s physicians and our patients.
Sincerely,
INSERT NAME