The Senate passed a temporary fix to the Medicare SGR on Friday, but the House still needs to vote on the bill before it can become law. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) has been holding Medicare claims since June 1st waiting to see if Congress would stop the 21% cut. Beginning today, CMS will be processing claims as of June 1st with the 21% cut.

The temporary SGR extension passed by the Senate would postpone the 21% cut until November 30 2010. It would also give a 2.2% increase for Medicare reimbursement retroactive to June 1st. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week. If the House does pass the Senate fix, Medicare claims will be processed with the enhanced 2.2% Medicare increase, but in the meantime, physicians will be scrambling to cover costs of providing care to seniors.

In other words, welcome to a total administrative mess. If the House passes this 2.2% increase and postpones the 21% cut until November 30th, CMS will be processing claims twice (once with the 21% cut and then again with the 2.2% increase) and we will be back here in November talking about a 21% Medicare cut to physicians. And this will be right after elections. Again……what a mess!

Originally, the Medicare SGR fix was going to be included in the tax extenders bill that has been in the Senate for the past few weeks. That bill is still being debated and is trying to extend unemployment & COBRA benefits, as well as extend the FMAP increase that states have been receiving to help with Medicaid caseloads.