Obama Signs 'doc-fix' Bill - Delays ICD-10 Compliance Deadline
04-10-2014
The Associated Press reports that on Tuesday, April 1, 2014, President Barack Obama signed into law legislation to give doctors temporary relief from a flawed Medicare payment formula that threatened them with a 24 percent cut in their fees.
A 64-35 Senate vote Monday cleared the measure through Congress. The law also delays nationwide implementation of the ICD-10 diagnostic codes until 2015.
The $21 billion bill would stave off a 24 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors for a year and extend dozens of other expiring health care provisions, such as higher payment rates for rural hospitals. The legislation is paid for by cuts to health care providers, but fully half of the cuts won't kick in for 10 years.
It's the seventeenth temporary "patch" to a broken payment formula that dates to 1997 and comes after lawmakers failed to reach a deal on financing a permanent fix. Read more.
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