Congress and HHS are sure that we’ll just accept whatever cuts they levy on us. We usually do. Congress doesn’t understand that the current Medicare policy is killing private practice of cardiology.

Maybe they’re right -- cardiologists will probably find ways to adjust to this. But the negative effects on patient access and costs will be real.

Would opting out of Medicare be an option? First, for many of our members, Medicare is 60% of the practice -- opting out may be tough. Taking no new Medicare patients is an option. But, at some point cardiology has to stop just accepting what Medicare doles out if we expect change. In Europe and elsewhere doctors and patients have a private practice option to exercise if the national health service entity is unfair. We really do not have that!

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