Physicians face another showdown with Congress as a fresh round of Medicare payment cuts loom for 2024. The recently released 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Proposed Rule further jeopardizes the financial stability of physician practices with a cut to the Medicare conversion factor — the starting point for calculating Medicare payments — by approximately 3.36 percent. 

Lawmakers need to hear from physicians about why legislative intervention is needed.

The Medicare physician payment system is broken. Systemic issues, such as the negative impact of the Medicare PFS’s budget neutrality requirements and the lack of an annual inflationary update will continue to generate significant instability for physicians moving forward. 

ACOI is one of more than 120 organizations that has endorsed a set of principles that will guide the physician community’s advocacy efforts on Medicare physician payment reform. Without reform, physician payment remains unpredictable and fails to accommodate appropriate spending growth. 

It will take time to achieve a fundamental restructuring of the physician payment system, and while ACOI is joining the physician community to lay the foundation for reform, action is needed by Congress to minimize the damage of looming cuts in the short term. 

Take action now.