WASHINGTON – AAHomecare is calling on stakeholders to contact their members of Congress this week to ask them to prevent broadly applied “deep” Medicare cuts for 2022.
The potential cuts stem from the application of pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) legislation that was enacted in 2010.
“If not addressed, PAYGO provisions would trigger automatic cuts across a range of federal programs to cover recent deficit spending increases – in this case, red ink incurred via the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan relief package,” the association wrote in a bulletin. “Under the current scenario, the broadly applied Medicare reimbursement cut for health care providers would be 4%, starting in FY2022.”
AAHomecare has been part of coalition efforts to address this issue since early 2021.
Specifically, the association is calling on stakeholders to ask their members of Congress to join efforts to include language waving the PAYGO requirements in continuing resolution legislative packages that could move as early as this week.
It’s also calling on stakeholders to ask them to support extending the current pause to the 2% Medicare sequester cuts that was originally granted in April 2020 and is currently set to expire at the end of this year.
“It was surely not Congress’ intent to finance COVID-19 relief measures through deep Medicare cuts for health care providers who are currently going all-out to protect patients and prevent a resurgence of the virus nationwide,” AAHomecare wrote.