With an automatic 21.2 percent Medicare fee cut looming next Monday, the AMA is showing members how to opt out of Medicare's set reimbursements and become a "non-participating" physician, according to a report on the AMA Web site.
The report said Congress is still expected to meet the March 1 deadline and postpone the fee cut, but the AMA wants the fee cut permanently replaced rather than just set aside for another year.
The report went on to say that physicians have until March 17 to change their Medicare provider status for the year to "non-participating," which reduces their Medicare payments but allows them to bill patients extra.
The report hastened to add that the AMA is "not advising or recommending" physicians to become non-participating, but then devotes several pages to describing the non-participation process and the process of leaving the program altogether to become a "private contracting" provider.
Meanwhile, the AMA has been turning up the heat on Congress to permanently fix the Medicare fee problem. In a Feb. 22 letter to every member of Congress, AMA President J. James Rohack, M.D., wrote that "kicking the can down the road with yet another short-term action magnifies the problem and makes it very difficult for physicians to continue caring for seniors."
For nine years, Congress has been postponing implementation of the sustainable growth rate formula, causing the amount to accrue to 21.2 percent.
Congress has resisted replacing the SGR reportedly because it would mean taking the expected savings from cutting physician pay off the federal books, making it more difficult to balance the federal budget on paper.
Read the AMA's report on non-participating Medicare providers (pdf).