IR UpFront
Tell Congress to prevent Medicare pay cuts
Interventional radiologists are facing another threat of significant Medicare pay cuts that would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. These pay reductions are being proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) despite several years of strong objections from Congress and most physician specialty groups.
The CY 2023 Medicare physician fee schedule rule proposes to cut the Medicare conversion factor by –4.5%. Cuts to the conversion factor would reduce reimbursement for all services provided by our specialty. IRs and other specialists providing office-based care will receive even deeper cuts due to the CMS plan to move forward with the 4-year transition to update clinical labor costs that was finalized in the CY 2022 fee schedule rule.
These reductions, resulting from the expiration of the 3% conversion factor increase included in the 2021 Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act, the application of statutorily required budget neutrality adjustments to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, and statutory pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) requirements will have a significant negative impact on IRs’ ability to continue to provide Medicare beneficiaries with the high-quality care they deserve.
If realized, the cuts mentioned above—when combined with the July 1, 2022, reinstatement of the 2% Medicare sequester—will equal a more than -10% payment reduction for interventional radiology, which is unsustainable, particularly in the current economic climate. Furthermore, for practices predominantly based in an office-based setting, reimbursement cuts may be as high as –14.5%.
The “Supporting Medicare Providers Act of 2022” is designed to mitigate the CMS proposed fee schedule cuts for 2023 by increasing the conversion factor by 4.42%, effectively putting the cuts on hold for a year. SIR supports this bill and will be working to see that Congress passes legislation to provide clinical labor update relief.
Now is the time to make our voices heard and let Congress know that the magnitude of these payment cuts threatens the viability of our practices and jeopardizes our ability to continue in our businesses providing the highest quality patient care.
SIR 2023 March 4–9
Registration for SIR 2023 is open! Don’t miss out on joining the best of IR science and education in Phoenix, March 4–9.
Learn more and register at
sirmeeting.org. Early bird
registration closes Jan. 13. At a glance….
The cuts could equal more than
10%
payment reduction for IR office-based labs (OBLs)
may see reimbursement cuts as high as
14.5%
Scan the code at left to send a prewritten email message to your U.S. representatives and senators, telling them to act now to stop the Medicare payment cuts and protect patient care!
10 IRQ | FALL 2022
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