AMA Backs Permanent Medicare Payment Update as Key Step Toward Reform

​The AMA strongly supports section 44304 of the Medicare proposal that provides a positive payment update of 75% of the Medicare Economic Index (MEI) for 2026.

Critically, this payment update, unlike the temporary updates of the last several years that ended in a cliff, will be permanently built into baseline physician payment rates. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored the permanent update provision at $8.9 billion over ten years.
 
In addition, the bill eliminates the dual conversion factor update of 0.25% of most physicians and 0.75% for Alternative Payment Model participants and replaces them with a single conversion factor update for 2027 and beyond at 10% of the MEI.
 
The AMA and our House champions view this as a foundational step toward comprehensive Medicare physician payment reform and they want to collaborate with us to improve the future payment updates, advance value-based care, and other needed changes.

Read the letter sent by the AMA to the Committee on Energy and Commerce in response to the Budget Reconciliation Recommendations.
 
NANS encourages you to join the AMA and communicate your support of the permanent update to the physician fee schedule.​

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