When politicians from both sides of the aisle tell you that they are going to cut Medicare payments, especially to doctors that are not providing “value” to the Medicare program, every provider in the country should listen. Now is not the right time to ignore this issue and hope it will go away. It is not going away; in fact, the Obama administration is accelerating the “value-based purchasing program” that is part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 (a major part of what is now colloquially referred to as OBAMA-CARE).

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) explains that the value-based purchasing program will transform Medicare from a passive payer to an active purchaser of higher quality, more efficient healthcare. “The Affordable Care Act directs CMS to provide information to physicians and medical practice groups about the resource use and quality of care they provide to their Medicare patients, including quantification and comparisons of patterns of resource use/cost among physicians and medical practice groups.” Continue reading…