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December 23, 2005
The
American College of Cardiology Calls on Congress to Reject Cuts
to Office-Based Imaging
(BETHESDA, MD)— In an end-of-year sprint
to finish budget reconciliation negotiations, conferees turned
to office-based medical imaging for quick cost savings after
rejecting other Medicare offsets included in the Senate-passed
reconciliation bill. The payment cuts to physicians who provide
life-saving medical imaging services presumably are being used
to offset the costs of preventing an across-the-board 4.4 percent
cut in Medicare physician payments in 2006.
The House has an opportunity to reject these arbitrary cuts
to physicians who depend on medical imaging to effectively
diagnose and treat their patients. The 4.4 percent cut in
Medicare physician payments must be halted, but not on the
backs of the very physicians whom Congress is trying to help.
“The imaging cuts included in the budget package set
a bad precedent and were included without a fair and open
debate in Congress,” said Pamela S. Douglas, M.D., F.A.C.C.,
president of the American College of Cardiology (ACC). "This
year, Congress began an important dialogue on paying physicians
for the quality of care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries.
We know that mechanisms like appropriateness criteria will
help assure the proper utilization of medical imaging services.
Instead of eliminating the flawed sustainable growth rate
formula and examining medical imaging in a thoughtful way,
conferees, desperate for savings, simply took an axe to imaging
without consideration of what cuts will do to access and,
coincidently, volume.”
The budget reconciliation bill was passed by the U.S. Senate
by a 51-50 vote. Due to changes made to the bill by the Senate,
it was referred back to the House of Representatives where
it awaits a vote. The ACC is calling on House lawmakers to
reject these ill-advised cuts, and to work with physicians
in 2006 to reform physician payment policy.
The American College of Cardiology, a 33,000-member
nonprofit professional medical society and teaching institution,
is dedicated to fostering optimal cardiovascular care and
disease prevention through professional education, promotion
of research, leadership in the development of standards and
guidelines, and the formulation of health care policy.
The American
College of Cardiology (ACC) provides these new reports of
clinical studies published in the Journal of the American
College of Cardiology as a service to physicians, the media,
the public, and other interested parties. However, statements
or opinions expressed in these reports reflect the view of
the author(s) and do not represent official policy of the
ACC unless stated so. |
