Texas Medical Association president Dr. Stephen Brotherton is urging Congress to take action on the Sustainable Growth Rate before it’s too late, WOAI reports.
Payment to doctors for treating seniors and military families on Medicare isn’t working, he said, and some doctors receive only one third of what it costs them to treat these patients. Unless the SGR is repealed, Texas doctors will see a 24 percent cut in reimbursement rates by the end of March.
“You only see 58 percent of doctors in Texas taking new Medicare,” he said. “It’s not that they don’t want to see those patients; it’s not that they don’t want to keep treatment patients that they have been treating. It’s just that they can’t afford it.”
