Physicians Urged to Support the Patients First Act, Aimed at Stabilizing the Medicare Payment System
Urge Your Congress Member to Support H.R. 9693
ASRA Pain Medicine joins the American Medical Association (AMA) in urging members to support the Patients First Act, H.R. 9693. Led by Reps. Greg Murphy, MD (R-NC), John Joyce, MD (R-PA), and Kim Schrier, MD (D-WA), the bipartisan bill would tie annual payment updates more closely to the real cost of delivering care, open up more paths for physicians to take part in alternative payment models, and bring greater predictability to a system that has relied on short-term fixes for years.
Year after year, inadequate and unpredictable payment has pushed physicians toward decisions driven by finances rather than patient care, including consolidating practices or capping the number of Medicare patients they can take on. Small, rural, and independent practices have been hit hardest. According to the AMA, even as the cost of running a practice keeps rising, Medicare physician payment has dropped roughly 33% since 2001 once inflation is factored in, and the reliance on temporary patches has only added to the uncertainty physicians face.
The bill would address this by:
- Providing a permanent annual payment update tied to the Medicare Economic Index (MEI) to better reflect increases in practice costs
- Modernizing budget neutrality policies, including provisions from H.R. 8163
- Creating a physician-led process for developing simplified, clinically relevant quality measures
- Expanding opportunities for physicians to participate in alternative payment models
Use the link to contact your member of Congress and urge them to cosponsor this bill.