5 Minutes Today Can Yield a Massive ROI for Chiropractic Physicians
If you have missed our previous several alerts, the federal government is introducing sweeping fee schedule changes that will negatively impact most health care providers. The impact to chiropractic physicians in Illinois? The fee schedules were released and there are 9% – 11% in cuts to the Medicare fee schedule AND a potential reduction in the RVUs for adjustments, physical therapies, and more. Lower RVUs may mean lower payments from ALL carriers.
What you can do to help?
Use the links below to ask Congress (Representatives) and Senators to fix the problem. This will take a total of approximately 5 minutes, as the letters are pre-crafted and the system can determine your Representative based on your address.
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Please do both even if you have acted before.
Background on Legislation
HR 8702 – The US House introduced legislation last month that will hold providers harmless from these changes for at least two years. The bill is titled, “Holding Providers Harmless from Medicare Cuts During COVID-19 Act of 2020,” and would hold reimbursements at 2020 levels and allow for increases to examination fees through 2022. You can see the legislation here and see the announcement here.
S. 5007 – The Senate introduced legislation late last week that is a companion bill to HR 8702 (i.e. mirrors HR 8702 but introduced in the Senate). This helps improve the chances that our federally elected officials take action on this issue.
Background on the Problem – How This Will Impact All Patients
The looming Medicare cuts have the potential to have a greater impact on ALL chiropractic physicians than may appear on the surface. If you have not seen our previous announcements, HHS is proposing massive chiropractic care cuts that may be as much as 19.54%. There are many reasons for the proposal, and many provider groups are facing cuts.
But this only impacts Medicare, right? Well, no, not really. The cuts from Medicare may negatively impact the RVU factors that are used by many payors and regulatory agencies. Additionally, some fee schedules are set as a factor of the Medicare fee schedule. Here is a short list of potential negative impact to payments:
- Insurance company fee schedules;
- State workers’ compensation fee schedules;
- Personal injury adjusters’ RVU usage for reasonable and customary determinations;
- Regulatory bodies’ RVU use to determine reasonable current market prices; and
- Medicare reimbursements (of course).
In short, the ICS anticipates that these fee cuts will negatively impact every chiropractic physician in one way or another.
Why is the ICS asking for help again (again)?
Our initial request to contact Congress was critical to garner the support early and help bring us to where we are – with an appropriate legislative solution.
Our last request asked for support for the best solution at that time, but as we have learned in 2020, things change and we must learn to adapt.
The current bill and its twin in the Senate appears to be the best solution that has garnered the greatest attention.
PLEASE DO NOT WAIT ANY LONGER!
More Information
If you would like more information and history on this issue, please see our article from earlier in September.
