President Signs Legislation to Prevent Medicare Payment Reductions and Therapy Cap
Yesterday, President Obama signed Senate Amendment to H.R. 4994, the Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010. This legislation will prevent the scheduled 25.5% Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) payment cut to physical therapists and other health care providers paid under the Medicare physician fee schedule. The provision in the bill will reverse the scheduled January 1, 2011 reduction and extend the current Medicare payment rates through December 31, 2011. The estimated cost of the provision is $14.9 billion over 10 years. The bill also contains several Medicare extender provisions, including the extension of the therapy cap exceptions process and the 1.0 work floor of the geographical price cost index (GPCI) until December 31, 2011. In addition, the legislation repeals the delay of the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Prospective Payment System (PPS) Resource Utilization Group - Version 4 (RUG-IV).*We’d like to note that Senate Amendment to H.R. 4994 DID NOT include a provision on the multiple procedure payment reductions (MPPR) for outpatient therapy. Those reductions are still scheduled for January 1, 2011.