On July 23, 2013, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee approved legislation to repeal the Medicare physician fee schedule SGR formula and replace it with a period of stable payment followed by reimbursement linked to quality of care. In the first phase, the legislation would set the fee schedule update for each of years 2014 through 2018 at 0.5%. During this time, the current law payment incentives, such as the PQRS and the EHR Incentive Program will continue. After that 5-year period, providers will receive an annual update of 0.5%, but an additional update adjustment would be based on quality performance under a new Update Incentive Program (UIP). Eligible professionals could choose at any time to opt-out of the fee-for-service program and participate in alternative payment models. The bill also requires the Secretary to implement a system for the periodic reporting by physicians of data on the accuracy of relative values for physician services, such as data relating to service volume and time; the Secretary could provide incentive payments to providers for reporting this data. The bill also directs Medicare to identify improperly valued services to reduce net physician fee schedule expenditures by 1% per year for 2016 through 2018 (not budget neutral). The full Committee is expected to vote on the legislation later this week.
