Rush Leads 25-Member Letter Urging Pelosi to Stop CMS Cuts for Specialty Providers in End-of-Year Package

Rush Leads 25-Member Letter Urging Pelosi to Stop CMS Cuts for Specialty Providers in End-of-Year Package
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Rush Leads 25-Member Letter Urging Pelosi to Stop CMS Cuts for Specialty Providers in End-of-Year Package (Washington, DC) — Today, U.S. Representatives Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), and Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) led 22 members of the Congressional Tri-Caucus in a letter to Speaker Pelosi urging the inclusion of language in any end-of-year legislative package to block looming Medicare cuts to specialty providers from going into effect.

Specifically, the legislators seek to block a portion of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 2022 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Final Rule that deals with updates to clinical labor data. Due to budget-neutrality requirements for the PFS, this portion of the rule will result in massive Medicare pay cuts of up to 23 percent to specialty providers, many of whom provide treatment for diseases that disproportionately affect Black and Latino patients. This will undermine health equity and force specialty providers to close, leading to even worse health impacts for many vulnerable groups.

“It is clear that any benefits of proceeding with the clinical labor policy at this time are far outweighed by the significantly negative impacts on PFS specialists, which will exacerbate health inequity, drive further health system consolidation, and undermine specialty care,” Rush and the Members wrote. “In short, these cuts will harm our nation’s most vulnerable patients and should not be allowed to be implemented. While we believe it is past time to work on fundamental reform of the Physician Fee Schedule, in the meantime, we strongly urge you to include language in the end-of-the-year legislative package which directs CMS not to proceed with the implementation of the clinical labor update.”

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The full text of the Member’s letter is available HERE.

Rep. Rush has been fighting tirelessly to prevent the cuts to specialty providers from going into effect. Last month, he introduced the Medicare Stability for Patients and Providers Act (H.R. 6048), new bipartisan legislation to prevent the cuts and require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to study the impact on providers of previous changes to the PFS and recommend longer-term reforms. And in September, Rep. Rush led a 75-Member letter to CMS urging the Agency not to move forward with the cuts.

Rush Leads 25-Member Letter Urging Pelosi to Stop CMS Cuts for Specialty Providers in End-of-Year Package

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