Erschienen in:
08.02.2017 | Not the Last Word
Not the Last Word: Unnecessary Surgery Can Never Be Done Well
verfasst von:
Joseph Bernstein, MD
Erschienen in:
Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research®
|
Ausgabe 4/2017
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Excerpt
Nearly 20 years ago, Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, triggering several major Medicare payment policy changes. One of the key provisions of this law was that the annual increase in healthcare spending could not exceed the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Medicare accordingly created a Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula to cap Medicare physician payments. Under the SGR, if in the previous year, GDP had grown by 2%, say, yet the volume of services had increased by 4%, the physician fee schedule in the coming year would automatically be reduced by approximately 2% to respect the limit. …