Eagle Newspapers– August 20,2008 -Physicians and Medicare patients were victorious on July 15 when both houses of Congress overturned President George W. Bush's veto of H.R. 6331, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2009.
The vote in the House of Representatives was 381 to 41 and the vote in the Senate was 70 to 26.
The legislation that eliminates the 10.6 percent cut in physician reimbursement, which was scheduled to go into effect on July 1, continues the 0.5 percent payment update for the remainder of 2008 and calls for a 1.1 percent increase for 2009. This marks only the fourth time in eight years that Congress has overridden a veto of President Bush.
The positive outcome shows what physicians and physician organizations can do when they join together and work together for a common cause. Now physicians in New York State must all focus on the medical liability issue.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for doctors to remain in private practice, when in addition to the high cost of malpractice insurance, they receive only about 50 to 60 percent of what they bill out to insurance companies for procedures and services that they perform. This rate is even lower when dealing with Medicare.
According to Anna T. Murphy, a CPA, doctors are essentially being forced to go into public practice because they cannot afford these rising costs and lower reimbursements. “On our end, we can advise physicians and CEOs to negotiate with insurance companies for a higher rate of reimbursement, thereby reducing the patients’ liability. But this alone will not solve the problem.”
The Governor, the Senate and the Assembly must take action now to provide premium relief to physicians and to deal with the out-of-control tort system in our state.
In June, state Superintendent of Insurance Eric Dinallo announced he was holding off on setting medical liability premium rates for the new policy year that began on July 1, in hopes that the governor and the Legislature would adopt measures to hold down and perhaps even lower medical liability premiums for the next 12 months.
Health care is essential, especially for our growing senior citizen population, but reforms to the system are necessary in order keep doctors in private practice and to keep costs down for the patients as well.
Anna T. Murphy, CPA is a partner at Green & Seifter CPAs and has over 29 years of experience. She specializes in medical-practice accounting and taxation and has extensive experience in billing and collection analysis for health care organizations, as well as quarterly and year end profit distribution allocations and planning. Anna is also a member of the Board of Directors and secretary of the Skaneateles Early Childhood Center. Anna can be reached at 315.701.6330 or Amurphy@GreenSeifterCPAs.com.
Founded in 1957, Green & Seifter CPAs provides its clients with professional services in the areas of accounting, audit and taxation, business planning and valuation, financial planning and investment management, and fraud prevention and detection. For more information about the Firm please contact Info@GreenSeifterCPAs.com or call 315.422.1391.
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