Establishing sustainable Medicare payment practices has long been a top priority for ACC Advocacy, and key bills introduced in Congress offer a promising pathway toward real, lasting reform.

Over the past five years, ongoing cuts to Medicare payments have resulted in a $700 million loss for cardiology services, threatening the financial stability of cardiovascular practices nationwide. As these year-over-year reductions continue, several legislative solutions, such as applying inflationary updates to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), raising the outdated budget neutrality threshold, and delaying implementation of the flawed efficiency adjustment, could provide critical relief across the health care system.

The ACC has been actively working to advance these reforms by:

• Joining with key stakeholders to urge Congress to add inflationary updates to the Medicare PFS and raise the budget neutrality threshold.
• Meeting with members of the GOP Doctors Caucus to highlight how payment instability impacts clinicians, practices and patient access to care.
• Building support for the Strengthening Medicare for Patients and Providers Act (H.R. 6160), introduced last year to establish annual inflationary updates to the PFS.
• Pushing back against the –2.5% efficiency adjustment, a structural change introduced in the 2026 Medicare PFS Final Rule, submitting direct feedback to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and meeting with lawmakers to encourage congressional action.

These sustained advocacy efforts are now starting to show results. Earlier this month, lawmakers introduced the Efficiency Adjustment Delay Act (H.R. 7520), which would postpone implementation of the efficiency adjustment until 2030. The bill also requires CMS to provide empirical evidence justifying the reduction and places restrictions on how any future adjustments are calculated.

In addition, Congress is expected to introduce legislation to increase the budget neutrality threshold, another commonsense step toward stabilizing the Medicare system.

Members are encouraged to add their voice to these efforts. Use the ACC Action Alerts below to contact your lawmakers and request their support for these vital reforms:

• Add an Inflationary Update to the Medicare PFS
• Delay the –2.5% Efficiency Adjustment to Medicare Payment

Keywords: ACC Advocacy, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S., Medicare, Health Services Accessibility, Fee Schedules, Cardiology, Physicians