AHA Letter to Senate Finance Committee on Medicare Part B White Paper

AHA’s nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinician partners — including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers — and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups, the American Hospital Association (AHA) writes to you to provide comment on the Senate Finance Committee white paper on Bolstering Chronic Care through Physician Payment, Current Challenges and Policy Options in Medicare Part B. The latest Medicare Trustee’s Report indicates that physician reimbursement has dropped over 20% over the last 20 years when accounting for inflation. In addition, there is a widening gap between the conversion factor updates and Medicare Economic Index (a proxy measure for physician cost inflation).