President Signs "Doc Fix
Last night, the House of Representatives passed HR 3962, the "Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010", as amended by the Senate last week, and President Obama signed it into law this morning. This temporary "doc fix" reverses the 21% SGR reduction which went into effect on June 1 and replaces it with a 2.2% increase which will be retroactive to June 1. The bill represents the fourth temporary extension of the SGR-related reductions to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule this year, and will expire on November 30.
Shortly after the President signed the bill into law this morning, CMS directed its carriers to discontinue processing of claims for dates of service June 1 and after until the new rates reflecting the 2.2% update are tested and loaded into the carrier's claims processing systems. CMS expects its carriers to have the updated rates in place and ready to resume claims processing no later than July 1. Claims for dates of service on or after June 1 which were released for processing at the SGR-reduced rate this week will be automatically reprocessed by the carriers to reflect the new rates.
> John R. Outlaw, CHC, CHBME
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