National: Texas Congressman Introduces Physician Workforce Legislation

Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and chair of the Congressional Health Care Caucus, has introduced HR 3693, the Ensuring the Future Physician Workforce Act. The legislation would enact permanent fixes to the formula Medicare uses to determine payment to doctors.


"Medicare's physician fee schedule will pay doctors less next year for the same patients and services they are currently providing. This flawed formula needs a permanent fix," Burgess said in a press release. "Doctors around the country realize that Medicare is an unstable payer, subject to the whims of political will and influence. This legislation would give doctors and patients what they really need - a sustainable and reliable Medicare payment schedule."

Under the current Sustainable Growth Rate formula, Medicare doctors are scheduled to receive more than a 20 percent reduction in Medicare payments on January 1, 2010 and a cumulative cut of 40 percent by 2016, while costs to practice medicine are expected to rise by 20 percent. The bill would keep the current formula for the rest of 2009 and block the decrease in 2010. Data would also be collected on annual savings in expenditures in the Medicare program due to physicians' services that resulted in hospital or in-patient diversion.

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