Medicare Cuts Delayed – 12-17-11

    I have good news.  Congress has delayed the pending Medicare reimbursement rates cuts (see Alert dated 12-16-11) for two months, until February 29, 2012. This is the 12th time that Congress has postponed a cut to Medicare reimbursement rates since 1997.
 
   To recap, the amount of the proposed cuts were 27.4-32.4% for LCSWs. This included Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) broad universal cut (27.4%) and the psychotherapy "extender" cut (5%).   These numbers are slightly revised from the ones that I had yesterday.
 
    While we would have preferred to see a longer delay or, ideally, a change in the SGR formula, this is certainly better than the cuts that were bring proposed.
   
     Please let me know if you have any questions.