WASHINGTON — After a week of partisan wrangling, the Senate on Friday passed legislation to spare doctors a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments looming for months. But the last-ditch effort came too late.
Moments after the Senate acted, Medicare announced it would begin processing claims it has already received for June at the lower rate. The reason: The House cannot act on the fix until next week.
That means doctors, nurse practitioners, physical therapists and other providers who bill under Medicare’s physician fee schedule will have to resubmit their claims if they want to be made whole, with added paperwork costs both for the providers and for taxpayers.
“Congress is playing Russian roulette with seniors’ health care,” Dr. Cecil B. Wilson, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. “This is no way to run a major health-coverage program.”
AARP, the seniors’ lobby, called the cut “unprecedented” and “dangerous” even if it is only temporary. Nancy LeaMond, the group’s executive vice president, warned it would undermine confidence in the stability of the giant health care program for 46 million elderly and disabled people.
The billings affected by the cut cover the early part of this month. An earlier congressional reprieve expired May 31. Medicare had been holding off on processing claims in the hopes lawmakers would act, but the agency said it can no longer do that without hurting doctors’ cash flow.
The Medicare cuts are required under a 1990s budget-cutting law that Congress has routinely waived. This time, lawmakers’ concerns about adding to the deficit held up a deal to allow an exception to enforcement of the law.
The bill passed by the Senate delays the cuts until the end of November — after congressional elections — when lawmakers hope the political climate is better for passing a more permanent, and expensive, solution.
The bill would also increase payments to providers by 2.2 percent. The legislation, which costs about $6.5 billion, is paid for with a series of health care and pension changes that both Democrats and Republicans agreed to.
