Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) news and information

Legislators on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of Capitol Hill are touting their early start on overhauling the Medicare physician payment system. However, those claims of progress will soon run into hard realities: No one has yet come up with a concrete plan to address the biggest...
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus opened the panel's first hearing in six years on Medicare physician pay with assertive rhetoric about scrapping the hated sustainable growth-rate formula this year. .
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Physician advocates see signs of progress in the Senate Finance Committee's hearing Tuesday—the panel's first in six years on replacing Medicare's physician payment system.
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Providers are coalescing around a five-year transition period before moving to a new Medicare physician payment system, according to a House Republican involved in developing the replacement.
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U.S. House of Representatives committee chairmen asked for guidance on replacing the sustainable growth-rate Medicare physician payment formula, and healthcare associations were happy to comply. The responses reflected the concerns of each responding association's constituency—particularly...
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New Issue Brief examines debate around Medicare physician payments. The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) was created to provide access for patients, control federal health spending on Medicare Part B, and distribute costs across different medical specialties. However, federal health care expenditures...
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The lead author of the 2010 healthcare overhaul confirmed Tuesday that he will not seek re-election when his term expires next year.
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As Oregon's governor, Dr. John Kitzhaber brought Democrats and Republicans together to reform his state's Medicaid program, and he brought doctors and lawyers together to advance tort reform.
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Some see the stars aligning for a once-in-a-lifetime shift in the way clinicians are paid. But the future physician payment system could end up looking a lot like the past.
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Medicare providers could see both bigger pay increases and bigger cuts than offered in the current system under a high-profile, bipartisan overhaul proposed Thursday.
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