“A Broken Payment System”

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is against recent proposed cuts in the 2023 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Physician Fee Schedule. According to the press release, these reductions will add to the already existing financial strain anesthesia groups face. In addition, “CMS has also proposed bundling several Current Procedural Terminology codes that will likely result in anesthesiologists and other pain medicine physicians receiving less payment for performing the same procedure.”

ASA President Randall M. Clark, MD, FASA, stated, “Yet another year of Medicare payment cuts shows that the Medicare physician payment system is completely broken. It is well past time for a meaningful and comprehensive overhaul of the Medicare payment system for physicians. For anesthesia and pain medicine services, Medicare payment rates are inadequate due to flaws in the government formula used to calculate anesthesia and pain medicine rates, which is unlike the formula used for other physician payments. There is significant evidence that these inadequate payment rates, rising practice costs, and pandemic-related financial pressures seriously threaten physicians’ practice survival and patient access to care.”

 

Read the press release.

Other Categories:

• Analgesics

• Anesthesiology

• pain management

• pain policy

• pain therapeutics