New Senate Bill To Delay Medicare Cuts

Temporary SGR "fix" Would Delay Medicare Cuts To September 30, 2010

On Wednesday, March 10, the U.S. Senate passed legislation extending the current Medicare physician fee until September 30, 2010. In addition, the bill would extend the Therapy Cap exceptions process through the end of 2010. Both the Medicare fee freeze extension and therapy cap exception are scheduled to expire on April 1. Theses extensions were included in a much larger bill dealing with another extension of unemployment benefits and extending a variety of expiring tax provisions. While this is welcome news, the House of Representatives must still agree to these changes before they can be sent to the President. Several provisions in the Senate bill (unrelated to the SGR and Therapy Cap fixes) are considered controversial by both the White House and the House of Representatives and there is no guarantee the House will approve the Senate's bill. Intense negotiations between the House and Senate will take place over the next few weeks on these controversial provisions.

Med USA will continue to monitor this situation and keep you informed of the latest developments. If you have any questions please feel free to contact Liz Gardner at 801.352.9500 ext 1308 or email lgardner@medusabil.com