MGMA urges passage of physician payment fix legislation (February 28, 2025)

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2/28/2025

February 28, 2025

The Honorable Mike Johnson	The Honorable John Thune
Speaker	Senate Majority Leader
H-232, The Capitol	S-230, The Capitol
U.S. House of Representatives	U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20515	Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Hakeem Jeffries	The Honorable Charles Schumer
House Democratic Leader	Senate Democratic Leader
H-204, The Capitol	S-221, The Capitol
U.S. House of Representatives	U.S. Senate
Washington, DC, 20515	Washington, DC 20510

Dear Speaker Johnson, Majority Leader Thune, Leader Schumer, and Leader Jeffries:

The undersigned physician and non-physician organizations, representing over one million clinicians, reach out to strongly urge Congress to take action to reverse the current 2.83 percent Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MFPS) Conversion Factor (CF) reduction and provide clinicians with a positive payment update in the upcoming March 2025 appropriations bill. Specifically, we ask that you cosponsor and support passage of H.R. 879, the bipartisan Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act.

Our organizations remain united on the need for both long- and short-term Medicare payment reform. Each year since 2020, Congress has acted to mitigate annual reductions in the MPFS CF. However, even with the additional relief from Congress, 2025 now marks the fifth consecutive CF cut.

As the only major provider fee schedule without an annual automatic inflationary update, MPFS reimbursement has failed to keep pace with the actual costs of providing care, leaving our members to navigate financial uncertainty year after year after year. Indeed, when adjusted for inflation, Medicare payments declined by 33 percent since 2001.2 The cost of running a medical practice continues to rise due to inflation. In fact, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) projects a 3.5 percent increase in the Medicare Economic Index (MEI) in 2025. Clearly, this unstable path threatens Medicare beneficiaries’ timely access to quality care — in both rural and urban settings. The ongoing downward reimbursement spiral is also contributing to consolidation in the health care system, as more clinicians are no longer able to sustain their practices and are forced to seek alternative business models, such as hospital employment, private equity and other alternatives. Finally, these cuts threaten the ability of our members — who are employers and small business owners — to serve as economic engines of our local communities.

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