ASCP Urges Congress to Fix MACRA

The ASCP, in conjunction with 120 state medical and national specialty societies, sent a letter to congressional leaders calling for refinements to the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). MACRA remains an improvement over the sustainable growth rate formula it replaced, but it too suffers from problems. The joint letter urges Congress to build on the lessons learned during the initial years of implementation to better incentivize quality patient care. 

Specifically, the letter asks Congress to replace a scheduled freeze in updates to physician payments from 2020 through 2025 under MACRA with positive payment updates. These are necessary to reflect increases in practice costs. The continuation of payment updates should also help physicians transition to alternative payment models (APM). Finally, the letter advocates that Congress work with the medical community to make technical improvements to MACRA, such as providing the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) with greater flexibility to streamline reporting under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and to adjust APM participation thresholds. 

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For more information regarding ASCP's advocacy initiatives and policy positions, please contact ASCP's Center for Public Policy at (202) 408-1110.

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