CBO grades Medicare doc fix bills

H.R. 2810 would increase Medicare payment rates by 0.5 percent in 2015, and another 0.5 percent in 2016, then hold payments steady through 2023. The system also would use a new “value-based” system to pay extra cash to high-performance physicians and take cash away from low-performance physicians, and it also would create an “alternative payment model” to encourage physicians to use other types of approaches to accept care-related financial risk.

S. 1871 would hold base Medicare physician payment rates level from now through 2023, and it also would create a “value-based” and “alternative payment model” payment systems, in an effort to pay more money to physicians who provide efficient, high-quality care.

Both bills would start by offering physicians “value-based” pay adjustments as large as 4 percent, and, from 2017 through 2022, the physicians who get value-based pay would get lump-sum annual payments equal to 5 percent of their Medicare payments in the prior year.

Implementing House bill would costs about $120 billion from 2014 through 2023, and implementing the Senate bill would cost about $150 billion, the CBO analysts estimate. 

See also:

• House, Senate talk Medicare physician pay
• Analyst eyes risks of Medicare SGR shift
• Democrats praise GOP doc fix effort