Quality, access or efficiency? Proposals to fix SGR attempt to meet all three goals

For two parties that rarely agree on anything, Republicans and Democrats from both houses of Congress have found common ground on one issue: Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for calculating physician reimbursement is broken. It remains to be seen, however, whether that bipartisan consensus means that the problem can be fixed.Medicare payments to participating physicians have been linked for more than 10 years to changes in the country’s gross domestic product through the SGR. As discussed in previous coverage, the SGR reduces physician payments automatically if program spending exceeds (Read more...)

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