About Liz Seegert
Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.
An agreement has finally been reached in both houses of Congress that replaces the Medicare physician sustainable growth rate formula, or SGR, with plan that provides stable funding updates based pay-for-performance and increases reimbursements by 0.5 percent annually for the next five years. The SGR, part of the 1997 Balanced Budget amendment, essentially ensured that the yearly increase in the expense per Medicare beneficiary does not exceed the growth in GDP.
However, as health care costs began to outpace inflation, the SGR began to fall short of the actual cost of health care services and Congress has repeatedly stepped in to suspend or adjust the payments (“doc fix”). Many physicians groups, including the AMA, have called for a more permanent, less formulaic, solution. Continue reading →
Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.