On June 18, 2010, the U.S. Senate passed yet another short-term funding of physician’s fees for Medicare. The earlier proposed bill, which would have lasted 6 months and included a 2.2% increase for doctors, was denied by a GOP filibuster. The Republicans complained that the bill’s benefits were not paid for, and refused to allow the national debt to be increased. This leaves health care providers yet again in a lurch.
Had the temporary measure not been passed, doctors would have suffered a 21% reduction in fees. This “Doc Fix” (as its come to be called,) is a stay of execution for both doctors and patients, but only a temporary one. As it is, the reduction in pay was already technically in place, but claims had been paid at the “full” rate in anticipation of a (another) reprieve from Senate.