CBO lowers estimate for 10-year freeze of payments under the SGR

The Congressional Budget Office recently released its Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023, which lowered the estimate to hold current payment rates under the sustainable growth rate for 10 years from $243.7 billion to $138 billion. “We welcome the news from the [Congressional Budget Office] CBO that the cost of permanently replacing the flawed Medicare physician payment formula, known as [sustainable growth rate] SGR, has decreased dramatically,” AMA President Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, stated in an AMA press release. “The new cost of freezing payments for 10 years is $138 billion, more than $100 billion less than the previous projection. The rate of Medicare spending growth declined compared to historical trends, and spending for physician services affected by the SGR is projected to be far less than previously estimated.”