For the fifth straight year, physicians are facing a Medicare payment cut unless Congress intervenes. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule, which includes yet another 2.8% cut to physician Medicare payments on January 1, 2025. This cut is mostly due to an expiring 2.93% temporary increase that Congress had previously authorized.

Failure to stop these cuts threatens seniors access to physicians and other health care providers treating patients in the outpatient setting.

Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks, MD (R-IA) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), along with a bipartisan group of physician members of Congress, including California physician Representatives  Ami Bera, M.D., and Raul Ruiz, M.D., are circulating a "Dear Colleague" letter urging House leadership to take immediate action to not only stop the 2.8% cut, but also provide physicians with a much-needed payment update that reflects the inflationary pressure they're facing running a medical practice. Contact your members of Congress and urge them to sign the Miller-Meeks/Panetta “Dear Colleague” letter today (sample email provided).

According to recent data, physician Medicare payment rates have fallen 29% over the last two decades when adjusted for inflation. Physician practices cannot continue to absorb increasing costs while payment rates stagnate or are cut.

These cuts coincide with ongoing growth in the cost of practicing medicine as CMS projects that the Medicare Economic Index practice expense will increase by 3.6% in 2025.

Anyone can see this path is unsustainable. Another round of cuts combined with ever rising inflationary costs and a long history of insufficient Medicare payments will endanger both physician practices and the patients they serve.

Please contact your members of Congress and urge them to sign the Miller-Meeks/Panetta "Dear Colleague" today. The deadline for cosigners is September 27.

The California Medical Association (CMA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) are also urging Congress to stop the cut and enact a permanent annual inflation update along with other key reforms to the Medicare physician fee schedule, including an overhaul of the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System reporting programs.