Anybody read the 2500 plus words on what was voted and approved late last night? Me either.
I do know that the debate will rage on. There will be endless amendments proposed, nothing about healthcare reform via H.R. 3590 will hit us anytime quickly except questions asking us how it impacts us.
The only thing I do know is the following:
-we have what is called the biggest reform in 30+ years in healthcare and there isn’t much impacting PT-nor should we really expect there to be as outpatient PT is roughly 14 billion/2.2 trillion of the pie
-I see nothing addressing the soon to be bankrupt medicare system but from what I understand, healthcare will expand to 31 Million and the deficit will reduce. For that to occur, money has to be taken from somewhere including less benefits for medicare, less payments to providers, or some combination of both. Laws of unintended consequences will likely impact all of this in one way or another
-The bill extends the never ending therapy cap exception process for 2010–Yahoo! Why there wasn’t room in a bill of over 2500 pages to get rid of it will never make sense to me
-the 21.2% reduction in payments under the medicare physician fee schedule goes into effect April 1. If I was a betting person, I see this being resolved or extended well before any final reform package gets to Obama’s desk
-I see nothing addressing key elements of PT-direct access or self-referral
Anybody ever run the math on 14 billion/2.2 Trillion?
