AACU shines a spotlight on reimbursement with prior policy advocacy & its upcoming 3/19 Congressman Murphy (R-NC) webinar

The Congressional battle over fair physician reimbursement has been a long struggle, especially for the urology community. The American Association of Clinical Urologists have stood with partners like LUGPA and the American Urological Association, as well as the American Medical Association (AMA) to get in the fight to help ensure the survival of our industry.

AACU recommended that CMS join us in urging Congress to continue the 1.25% increase in conversion factor along with advocating to Congress that any further reimbursement changes be made in conjunction with the urology community.

Last September, the AACU submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on both Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems (OPPS) as well as the 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS). Specifically, with the MPFS we highlighted the following:

• AACU recommended that CMS join us in urging Congress to continue the 1.25% increase in conversion factor along with advocating to Congress that any further reimbursement changes be made in conjunction with the urology community.
• We recommended that CMS should include an inflationary index to the conversion factor so that the income of providers is not eroded over time due to the effects of inflation. Without a mechanism to stop the downward trajectory in revenue, therewill likely be a further exodus from the field of medicine, which will have a chilling effect on timely access and effective care for Medicare beneficiaries.
• AACU asked for additional details around the indications and required documentation for this particular code so that we can alleviate ambiguities and unintended confusion.
• AACU respectfully requested that the threshold for a MIPS penalty not be increased from 74 to 82 points for the year 2024. We also recommended a delay in the implementation of the cost category to MIPS CY 2024. The AACU feels that the cost category for urology episodic treatment for nephrolithiasis will unfairly punish urologists.
• We supported the continued delay in implementing the Rebased Medicare Economic Index (MEI) until the completion and review of the AMA PPIS survey
• We supported the suspension of proposed changes to the split/shared services E/M visits for 2024 and believe it is prudent to await further input from the CPT Editorial Panel.
• AACU strongly urges CMS to permanently or indefinitely extend any and all waivers put in place for telehealth and to do so by instructing all interested parties, including commercial payers, that there should be payment parity when it comes to telehealth.

After we submitted our comments to CMS we monitored the physician reimbursement debate on the Hill. We took action by publicly supporting H.R. 6683 titled the “Preserving Seniors’ Access to Physicians Act of 2023” sponsored by Congressman Murphy (R-NC). The bill sought to eliminate the 3.37% cut to the Medicare physician payment, which took effect on January 1, 2024.

We know that the spirit of Congressman Murphy’s bill morphed into what we saw President Biden recently sign which did somewhat mitigate the previously scheduled physician reimbursement. We acknowledge that there is still much work to do.

Hence the AACU is excited to announce its March 19, 2024 8PM EST webinar with Congressman Murphy. Registration can be found here.

For additional information on AACU’s policy stances here.