Paper Topic:

fixing the Sustainable growth rate SGR formula and what is renal physicians association political action committee doing to influence health care policy

Renal physicians Association and the SGR

The present formula for updating the payment for services of physicians is called as the sustainable growth rate . However the very conceptual bias of this particular system is defective . The SGR was created in reaction to the Reform act and the Balanced budget of 1997 .The Congress came in to establish the fee schedule as one part of Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989 (OBRA89 . This was made to control the bias of inflation existing as a result of the CPR method , rectify distortions in payment

module , as well as allow the lead to a yearly update of the payment rates of the fees schedule . This lead to the legislation of a formula which was based on the attainment of the expenditure target . As per the SGR formula the expenditure target is not influenced by the historical volume growth of the earlier formulas . It is founded on the actual GDP per capita as well as various other factors like alterations in spending due to laws and regulations , increase in physicians practice cost (Stabenow Debbie , September 13 , 2006 , HIMSS Reports : Senator Stabenow Introduces SGR Formula Fix

The RPA came into being in 1973 . It is a national medical specialty association where the members are licensed nephrologists of US , the healthcare providers who are in the subspecialty area of internal medicine as well as those in teaching , medicine , research of renal diseases and diss The basic and core values of the RPA is to enhance professionalism , ensure that there is greater equality in compensation , provide efficient and ethical advanced renal care as well as to promote leadership . The annual membership dues vary from 375 to 0 depending on the membership category . The RPA is committed towards providing high quality service to renal patients and follows the ESRD Patient Safety Initiative , Clinical Practice Guidelines , provides Clinical Performance Measures and incorporates quality improvement tools . According to the payment module it may seem that RPA is concerned for the advancement of its members however the RPA has shown consistent concern for providing quality service to kidney patients (RPA , 2006 About RPA : RPA ,the Advocate for Excellence in Nephrology Practice

According to the Political action Committee (PAC ) of the Renal Physician Association the Sustainable growth rate (SGR ) approach is impregnated by three basic problems . Firstly it results in severing the connection between the payment and cost of producing services . By utilizing this particular formula updates are produced which completely dissociated from the various factors that influence the changes including the cost involved in producing the services of physicians . If this is not dealt with urgently the updates provide a semblance of budget regulation but in the process they also produce a fee 's that will in the long term endanger the beneficiary 's access greatly . Thus the people including the physicians suffer ultimately (Hackbarth M .Glenn , February 28 , 2002 MedPAC recommendations on physician payment policy , Medicare Payment Advisory Commission

Secondly there is an inherently defective volume control mechanism brought into...

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