Congress weighing changes to Medicare reimbursements for doctors

Aug 12 2013

In other Medicare news, USA Today looks at the debate over whether the government should pay for Alzheimer's PET scans.

Medpage Today: Will These Changes Pay For SGR Repeal?
Congress left town last week with at least one series of proposals on the table that could make up for the nearly $140 billion shortfall that would occur if and when Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula is repealed. The House Ways and Means Committee has recently proposed a number of changes to Medicare's beneficiary cost-sharing structure and post-acute care system as part of its broader mission of entitlement reform. The proposals are designed is to make Medicare more solvent, but questions remain over how or if they will connect to ongoing efforts to repeal the SGR (Pittman, 8/8).

USA Today: Experts Debate Coverage Of Scans For Alzheimer's
The federal government will decide in early fall whether to pay for brain scans in people with suspected Alzheimer's disease. The PET scans, which cost about $3,000-$5,000 apiece, have proved useful for research, and neurologists are eager to have access to them, but a recent government review raised questions about their effectiveness at detecting dementia (Weintraub, 8/8).