The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program final rule on November 2, and there are big changes to physician payments. In particular, the Medicare conversion factor, which forms the basis for payments to clinicians, will be lowered by 3.7%. There’s nuance in calculating the payments, but you can sum this up as most doctors will take a pay cut in 2022. And since the final rule goes into effect on January 1, 2022, doctors will begin feeling the cuts in Q1 revenue. The rule is specific to Medicare, but there are plans to push similar changes in Medicaid and we all know commercial payers tend to follow CMS’ lead. We believe this change will have a ripple effect across the industry.

On this episode, I talk with Gail Zahtz, CEO at PropHealth, as part of our ongoing Value-based Payment in 2022 series about what doctors can expect in terms of Medicare FFS payment come January 1, 2022. We discuss this as another example of CMS trying to make Fee-for-Service less “comfy” and expedite the move to value-based payment models. Gail helps us to understand what options exist and we lay out a framework for how to evaluate those options.

This is a heavy episode, and there are no clear answers. However, there is a known direction and a viable path forward. We’ll try to get you moving in the right direction.

 

For full show notes and links: https://thehcbiz.com/177-doctors-just-took-a-pay-cut-vbp-in-2022-with-gail-zahtz-part-3/