Senator Stevens Gets Medicare Reimbursement Increase for Alaska

Posted by health4all

Posted: July 12, 2008 - 8:00 am

This is a good summary of the bill from Alaska’s perspective. When the President vetoes it, the majority of the 18 Republican Senators who voted for it will have to do that again. There were over a hundred Republicans in the House that voted for it and the House should remain firm. The President is expected to put significant pressure on the Senate to support him. He’ll have every physician in the entire country mad at him. Even if he isn’t running, he’s going to hurt those Republicans who are. Because Alaskans have so much riding on this particular bill, the Alaska delegation will probably vote to override the veto. However, understanding how much pressure the current administration will put on the Alaska delegation, they will need to be strongly encouraged to stay tough on this issue. They crafted a “miracle solution” to the Medicare physician access problem in Alaska and we can’t let it disappear. [Thanks to "Ethel" for the original version of this paraphrased commentary]

The following is a press release from Senator Stevens, dated July 11, 2008:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate today approved legislation that contains a permanent Medicare reimbursement fix for Alaska authored by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also supported the provision and both voted in favor of the Medicare reform bill which passed the Senate by a vote of 69 to 30.

The legislation now goes to the President to be signed into law. The permanent Medicare fix for Alaska will take effect in January of 2009.

“Medicare has only been paying about 40 percent of the costs for Alaska seniors. For years, they have struggled to get access to health care because these Medicare payments were insufficient,” said Senator Stevens. “Those days should be over now thanks to the provision I secured in this bill, which will raise Medicare payments to Alaska physicians by about 35 percent.”

The legislation approved today makes a permanent increase to the work component of the Medicare Geographic Practice Cost Index beginning January 1, 2009. This fix would bring Alaska Medicare payments for primary care above the rates paid by Alaska’s Medicaid program. The result is an approximate 35 percent increase in Medicare payments for Alaska. Payments for other physician services under the new system should also increase to at least as high as Alaska's Medicaid rates and possibly more.

As part of the Medicare Prescription Drug legislation in 2004, Senator Stevens authored a provision that raised rates for Alaska physicians under Medicare by about 40 percent. That provision was in effect from January 2005 until the beginning of 2007, but the Senate chose not to extend that program further.

Senator Stevens was also successful in urging the Veterans Administration (VA) and Department of Defense to adopt modifications to the Medicare physician payment system for their beneficiaries in Alaska. Several years ago, the VA conducted a study of access to care for Alaska veterans using private physicians. As a result of that study, the VA adopted an Alaska-specific physician payment system that pays doctors seeing veterans significantly more than Medicare does.

In January 2007, the Department of Defense (DoD) was faced with a similar access to care problem for Alaska TRICARE beneficiaries. At the urging of Senator Stevens, DoD instituted a three-year pilot program in Alaska that pays physicians about 35 percent more than Medicare to see its beneficiaries. TRICARE bases its payments on Medicare physician payment rates.

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