Medicare Unveils Far-Reaching Overhaul of Doctors' Pay

WASHINGTON (AP) — Changing the way it does business, Medicare on Friday unveiled a far-reaching overhaul of how it pays doctors and other clinicians. The goal is to reward quality, penalize poor performance, and avoid paying piecemeal for services. Whether it succeeds or fails, it's one of the biggest changes in Medicare's 50-year history. The complex regulation is nearly 2,400 pages long and will take years to fully implement. It's meant to carry out bipartisan legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama last year. The concept of paying for quality has broad support, but the details have been a concern for some clinicians, who worry that the new system will force small practices and old-fashioned solo doctors to join big groups. Patients may soon start hearing about the changes from their physicians, but it's still too early to discern the impacts. The Obama administration sought to calm concerns Friday. "Transforming something of this size is something we have focused on with great care," said Andy Slavitt, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Officials said they considered more than 4,000 formal comments and held meetings around the country attended by more than 100,000 people before issuing the final rule. It eases some timelines the administration initially proposed, and gives doctors more pathways for complying. The American Medical Association said its first look suggests that the administration "has b...
Source: JEMS Special Topics - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: News Mobile Integrated Healthcare Source Type: news