AMA Flame Throws CMS for Cutting Physician Pay

The American Medical Association (AMA) applied the heat to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), for its fifth year of proposing to cut physician pay.

The 113-page letter, by AMA CEO and EVP James L. Madara, M.D. on behalf of the physician and medical student members of the AMA, was written in response to CMS 2025 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the revisions to Medicare payment policies under the Medicare Physician Payment Schedule (MPFS) and Quality Payment Program (QPP), published in the Federal Register on July 31, 2024.

This is the fifth year in a row that CMS proposed cutting physician’s pay.

According to the letter, “CMS proposes a 2.8 percent cut to Medicare physician payments starting January 1, 2025, while estimating that the costs of practicing medicine, as measured by the Medicare Economic Index (MEI), will increase by 3.6 percent.”

The letter asserts that the proposed rule is “silent on the impact of the growing gap between what Medicare pays for care and what it costs to provide that care.” The letter then urges the administration to work with Congress to “enact a permanent, annual inflation-based update to Medicare physician payments.”

The letter also emphasized that the proposed cuts “impede” administration policy priorities. The proposed cuts would reduce spending on policy priorities including the Cancer Moonshot, strengthening primary care, and improved maternal health programs.

The letter asserted that “the 2025 cuts compound across-the-board cuts in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, AND are not sustainable for physicians and their patients, and risk jeopardizing the Administration’s priorities and access to critical services.” It strongly urged “CMS to acknowledge the negative effects of the proposed payment cut on Medicare beneficiaries in the final rule and the Biden-Harris Administration to support any congressional action to replace the cut with a positive update.”