Since the advent of Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) legislation in 1997, avoiding negative adjustments to Medicare payment rates has become an annual ritual of Congress and advocates alike, as each seeks to balance fiscal discipline against threats to health care access for millions of Americans. Even against this backdrop, Medicare payments and the access they support faced a unique challenge in the summer of 2008, in which several overlapping cuts were proposed. Most primary care physicians do not fully appreciate the extent to which these cuts could have affected or may again impact payment and access in their states.
You can access a state-specific guide to the Impact of Medicare cuts via the drop-down menu of states on this page. We analyzed the actual and proposed cuts from 2008 at a local level as a way to prepare physicians to understand the many ways in which future changes might affect their practice. The state profiles are associated with the article, “Threats to Medicare Physician Reimbursement and their Geographic Variation, 2008 and 2010” that is pending population. A summary of the methods is available online.
The state profiles complement the study by providing local projections at-a-glance, but also offer a concise summary and review of the basics of Medicare payment and incentives. We encourage the use of these profiles for distribution to state physicians and leadership and hope that you will find it a useful advocacy tool in the current climate of health care reform.
Please e-mail the Graham Center with questions.