Update on Medicare Cuts - 12-23-11

     There has been a great deal of political maneuvering since I sent a post last week on the apparent resolution of the cuts to Medicare reimbursement, in general, and psychotherapy benefits, in particular. As of today, the information that I sent is again accurate, having gone through several permutations.  The bill also includes extensions to payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

    You can find the original post in italics below.  The tortuous process this past week wound up including consideration of a pipeline from Texas to Canada which will almost certainly be vetoed and the creation of a joint committee to extend this two month bill.  

     While the past week has been difficult, the result is still the one that CSWA had hoped for.  

    I have good news.  Congress has delayed the pending Medicare reimbursement rates cuts 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.