Momentum builds for repealing SGR; could ‘doc fix’ be next?

Momentum builds for repealing SGR; could ‘doc fix’ be next?-cardiologytoday: Since the late 1990s, Medicare payments to participating physicians have been linked to changes in the country’s gross domestic product through the program’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula. As readers of this blog are well aware, this formula produces an automatic reduction in payments to physicians if overall program spending exceeds a pre-determined target. Of course, Congress has suspended these automatic cuts each year since 2002 through a series of temporary “doc fixes.” If Congress fails to enact a similar suspension this year, the SGR formula could result in a 24.4% cut in Medicare’s payments to physicians in 2014.