Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
CMS Proposes Plan To Pay Doctors The Same For Seeing Patients With A Cold Or Stage 4 Cancer
The New York Times: Sniffles? Cancer? Under Medicare Plan, Payments For Office Visits Would Be Same For Both
The Trump administration is proposing huge changes in the way Medicare pays doctors for the most common of all medical services, the office visit, offering physicians basically the same amount, regardless of a patient’s condition or the complexity of the services provided. Administration officials said the proposal would radically reduce paperwork burdens, freeing doctors to spend more time with patients. The government would pay one rate for new patients and another, lower rate for visits with established patients. (Pear, 7/22)
The New York Times: Got Medicare Advantage? Prepare For New Perks — And New Questions.
Did you fall in the bathroom and fracture your hip? Medicare, if you have it, will pay thousands of dollars for surgery to repair the injury and thousands more for your resulting hospital stay and rehab in a nursing home. But Medicare wouldn’t have paid $200 to have grab bars installed in your bathroom, or covered the cost of a $22-an-hour aide to assist you in the shower — measures that might have helped you avoid the accident. (Span, 7/20)
