Cutting Clinician Compensation for Primary Care Is Not the Answer-A Closer Look at Federal Programs
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Physician Pay Cuts Cutting Medicare and Medicaid payments to doctors will not engender more support for primary care, which is the weakest link in the chain in U.S. health care. This article examines federal programs established to create an improved healthcare system which have unintended consequences. Under the Budget Control Act of 2007, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) have been required to assess certain health care quality factors and integrate that data into clinician compensation. Initially, doctors were given incentives to show the quality of their care, but now the penalty phase has started. Also, please note, this law has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act, so those of you with that myopathy, don't get your shorts in a bunch. Based on the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) (1.) results from CMS, 470,000 doctors will get a 1.5% haircut, which is in addition to the overall budget reduction of 2% due to sequestrati...