News

Congress Passes Medicare Bill That Avoids New Imaging Cuts. But the battle over cuts will resume in early 2008.

December 19, 2007

 

Washington, D.C. – A vigorous campaign by Philips Government Relations and Philips Medical senior executives secured a victory for Philips and the medical imaging community by avoiding a new round of Medicare imaging reimbursement cuts in the Medicare bill that just passed Congress. The President is expected to sign the bill into Law.

 

This is great news and a significant turn around. Only four and a half months ago, the House of Representatives passed its version of the Medicare bill that included four onerous provisions targeted specifically at medical imaging. A fifth provision, which affected all Medicare non-hospital medical services, would have made deep cuts in medical imaging reimbursements in future years. Like the imaging cuts in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), these provisions were added with little warning, and no consultation with the imaging industry. The impact of these House imaging cuts would have been much more severe than the imaging cuts in the DRA.

 

Philips and its imaging community partners, including medical providers, physicians, and patient groups, mobilized immediately to block these onerous provisions from becoming law. Through these combined efforts, the coalition secured 173 signatures by U.S. Representatives and 28 by U.S. Senators on legislation expressing support for medical imaging. Also, 30 U.S. Senators wrote the key Senate Healthcare Chairman urging no new imaging cuts this year. Many of these signatures were secured through the direct effort of Philips. In addition, Philips and its coalition partners employed a targeted issue-oriented imaging PR campaign, outreach to Members of Congress in their home districts, educational briefings for Hill staff, meetings by Philips senior executives Brent Shafer, Steve Rusckowski and Gerard Kleisterlee with Members of Congress, and other efforts to raise the profile and educate policy makers on the importance of medical imaging and the adverse ramifications of the DRA imaging cuts.

 

Part of the reason for the proposed imaging cuts was rapid spending growth in overall Medicare reimbursement for physicians. Under the existing laws—and totally unrelated to imaging—physicians who participate in the Medicare program would have received a 10.1% cut in their reimbursement for non-hospital Medicare services effective January 1, 2008. In order for physicians to avoid this cut, Congress had to find additional funds by cutting other Medicare programs – such as imaging - to prevent it from taking effect. It was this effort to find funds that led to the imaging cuts passed by the House, and kept imaging vulnerable right up until the end of this session of Congress.

 

As the Congressional allies of imaging in the Senate and House weighed in, Congress found the money to keep the physicians from getting this cut—and none of these funds came from cuts in medical imaging. That’s the good news. However, Congress could only agree on enough funding to cover the anticipated physician cut for six months. So, unless Congress intervenes once again, physicians participating in Medicare will now face a 10.1% cut starting July 1, 2008. This means that during Spring and Summer 2008, imaging will be vulnerable again as a possible target.