Key Takeaways: 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published the Calendar Year (CY) 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed rule on July 13, 2023. Stakeholders can comment and provide feedback within a 60-day window, with the proposed rule scheduled to be finalized by November 1, 2023, after review of submitted comments by CMS.

The proposed rule has far-reaching impacts across healthcare and looks to continue imposing cuts across the board for physicians and other clinicians, upwards of 3.36% in reductions. Partial temporary fixes to physician payment have been offered in the last several years; however, the latest fix in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (CAA, 2023) enacted at the end of 2022 does not counterbalance all the planned cuts. CMS also intends significant policy changes related to telehealth services, revisions to the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), plus initiatives supporting health equity and other items to further improve physician quality initiatives.

Key takeaways include:

  • Proposed 2024 CF of $32.7476, representing a 3.36% reduction from the 2023 physician CF of $33.8872, and a 2024 anesthesia CF of $20.4370, representing a 3.26% reduction from the 2023 anesthesia CF of $21.1249.
  • Proposed cancellation of the Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) program in its entirety.
  • Proposed increase to the 2024 MIPS performance threshold to 82 points, up from 75 points in both 2022-2023.
  • Proposed new procedure for adding, removing, or changing codes on the Medicare Telehealth Service list, creating differential payment based on the place of service.
  • Proposed changes to the MSSP for financial benchmarking and assignment methodologies, etc.

Comments on the proposed rule are due no later than September 11, 2023.

Additional Resources

Proposed Regulation

Overall Announcement

Payment Policies Factsheet

QPP Factsheet

MSSP Factsheet

Industry Articles, Summaries, & Statements

Medicare fee schedule proposes pay cut for diagnostic and interventional radiology; ditching AUC program also on the table

CY 2024 Medicare Physician Payment Schedule and Quality Payment Program (QPP) Proposed Rule Summary

MGMA statement on proposed 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

ACR Releases Preliminary Radiology-Specific Summary of 2024 Proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

Broken Medicare System Results in CMS Proposing Reduced Physician Payments in 2024
EDPMA Statement on Proposed Cuts to 2024 Medicare Emergency Medicine Payments

Author

Ben Buchanan

Ben is a veteran of the healthcare industry with over 12 years’ experience in account management and product management roles. He is responsible for the oversight and implementation of the Imagine Product line. He holds a Bachelor’s degrees in Marketing from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and a Master’s of Business Administration from Queens University of Charlotte.