The California Medical Association (CMA) and the California Hospital Association (CHA) today sent a joint letter to the California Congressional Delegation, urging immediate action to eliminate or delay the Medicare payment cuts that are scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2022.

“California’s hospitals and physicians continue to provide critical health services to their patients and communities during this pandemic, all while facing their greatest financial crisis,” the letter said.

To ensure they can continue to provide essential care and emerge from the pandemic equipped to tackle tomorrow’s challenges, CMA and CHA are urging California’s members of  Congress to support legislation that would both extend the moratorium on the 2% Medicare sequestration cuts and prevent the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) sequestration — which would further reduce Medicare payments by 4% — from taking effect at the end of the year. We also urge your support for stopping the additional 3.75% Medicare physician cut.

These three cuts would result in as much as a 10% payment cut to our nation’s hospitals and physicians — specifically, $1.1 billion in cuts to California’s hospitals and roughly $85 million in cuts to California’s physicians. This represents a significant and devastating financial burden during an extraordinary public health crisis and threatens access to care for all Californians.

California’s doctors and hospitals continue to incur significant COVID-19-related expenses that have not been adequately covered by the Provider Relief Funds distributed to date.

While we are grateful for the federal relief funds that have been made available to hospitals and physicians so far, our greatest public health and financial challenges lie ahead. These three Medicare cuts are simply unsustainable.

Click here to read CMA’s letter.