Announcement: Medicare SGR and GPCI Bill Clears Committee August 2, 2013 General GPCI Bill, SGR, HR 2810, Legislation, Medicare, Medicare SGR 0 On Wednesday, July 31, the House Energy & Commerce Committee voted UNANIMOUSLY to approve H.R. 2810, the bill to repeal and replace the Medicare SGR. Included in that bill is a California Medicare locality reform (known as the "California GPCI Fix") which will update payments for the urban physicians in Locality 99 and Locality 3 while holding the rural physicians in these localities harmless from payment cuts. OCMA and CMA are pleased with this herculean effort to move Medicare SGR legislation on a bipartisan basis as well as update the outdated Medicare physician payment localities. CMA physicians have cleared the first hurdle in a long legislative process. The Medicare SGR and GPCI Locality issues will now be taken up by the House Ways & Means Committee as well as the Senate Finance Committee. While there are several aspects of the bill that concern CMA, including the downside penalties and lack of adequate updates, the bill meets many of the goals that CMA advocated to Congress to eliminate the annual threat of nearly 30% SGR payment cuts, 5 years of stable updates, a continuation of the Fee-for-Service (FFS) program with opportunities for updates, and incentives to help physicians transition to new payment and delivery models. There is still much work to be done on the entire bill and Congress recognizes that. If you would like further details on this matter, please contact OCMA. Comments are closed.