By CQ Staff
January 25, 2008 -- The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to work with a variety of groups to implement provisions of a new law that expands a Medicare physician reporting initiative.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems, Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the panel's ranking Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said it is important for CMS to work with the National Quality Forum, the American Medical Association's Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement, specialty societies, and other stakeholders "to ensure the most meaningful measures are available" for use in the Medicare physician quality reporting initiative.
In December, President Bush signed into law legislation (PL 110-173) that stopped a scheduled cut in Medicare physician payments and extended federal funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) through March 2009. Provisions of that legislation extended the 1.5 percent incentive payments for physicians who successfully report measures during 2008, and the law removes the application of the cap on calculation of incentive payments for reporting in 2008 and 2009.
In their letter, Baucus and Grassley indicated they intend to "move legislation that would extend incentive payments for 2009 and future years in order to continue making progress toward aligning Medicare payments more closely with the quality of care provided."
The physician reporting provisions, the lawmakers wrote, "are designed to address existing shortcomings" in the current Medicare physician quality reporting program as well as "encourage broader participation by physicians and other eligible professionals, and move toward our long-term vision for a valid, consumer-friendly mechanism for measuring and rewarding the quality of care that clinicians provide."
In their letter, Baucus and Grassley indicated they intend to "move legislation that would extend incentive payments for 2009 and future years in order to continue making progress toward aligning Medicare payments more closely with the quality of care provided."
Bush Administration officials and many lawmakers have expressed support for the idea of linking Medicare reimbursement to the quality of care provided. While many physician groups say they support quality measures and pay for performance—which links payment to the quality of care provided—they say Congress must move cautiously because one set of quality measures will not work for all medical specialties.