CMS gives RO a 2% hair cut.

[fiji128]

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[fiji128]

Medicare physician payment final rule cements more cuts to radiation oncology, underscores need for - American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)

Official statement by radiation oncologists in response to the 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) final rule

www.astro.org

 

[RickyScott]

Yet large departments are more profitable than ever? Salaries and opportunities for employed docs are not affected by cms reimbursement. Rocr will worsen both.

 

[elementaryschooleconomics]

View attachment 378626

What is this...ROCR?

That's weird. It would be weird to search through the ASTRO X/Twitter account to see if that hashtag has been used before, when, and how many times.

Is it like a rocking chair or something?

 

[sirspamalot]

#ROCR:

Radically Obliterating Community Radoncs

"We heard your concerns, so on behalf of my esteemed colleagues here leading ASTRO, I'd like to introduce our newest revision.. SCREW-U !"


First we called it RO APM. Now its ROCR. Next year we'll just call it by its new name: SCREW-U. Stupendously Correcting Reactionary Extensive Workover of U.

SCREW-U, coming in 2025 !

-ASTRO

 

[evilbooyaa]

What is this...ROCR?

That's weird. It would be weird to search through the ASTRO X/Twitter account to see if that hashtag has been used before, when, and how many times.

Is it like a rocking chair or something?

I look forward to billing everything under one code so that it is easier for CMS to decide to cut us by 2%+ per year.

/s

 

[Gfunk6]

10 years of "haircuts" =

 

[sirspamalot]

Another radical obliteration to community radoncs!

#ROCR
#F_ASTRO

 

[DebtRising]

The cuts are brutal. We were already dramatically cut from early 2000s levels which was published, and continuous cuts have a huge negative pressure on younger physicians salaries and everyone not 55 plus. And if you are younger, radiation is not getting easier. Shorter, more technical courses with less forgiveness when utilizing higher doses, having to see more patients to meet targets, which has its own emotional burden as well, and practicing in a two tiered world with the old guard and the guarantee of CMS whipping us like a dog who stole the dinner steak is awful. The balance between reasonable compensation and both actual and emotional effort is way off and papered over only by the legacy employment deals and practices which started in a previous era. And we can’t even go to the bathroom without getting prior authorization. Hopefully the TP is approved without needing appeal.

The future of radiation medicine is less centers with less doctors, automation of more tasks, and compassion measured and limited by CMS actuaries to be transferred over to pharma.

ROCR is a pernicious idea that helps large private practices the best and hurts everyone else. And maybe protons for being exempt. Note who was on and presenting the Town Hall about it. And ASTRO staff also has an incentive to get “something” passed to justify itself.

All efforts need to support the AMA and the push to index Medicare payments to inflation. There will be a big battle over Medicare spending this election, or behind the scenes with the new House leader. From a value proposition the cost, time, and effort in attainment to become an MD and practice, versus the rewards, defined as autonomy, compensation, respect, or job satisfaction, continues its mismatched march lower. Yet we, and again especially young physicians, are tasked with “cranking out” higher productivity for the aging population with more stress and less reward than the generation before us. It stinks, and this is not a cry but a reflection of how lousy this whole thing turned out compared to other choices available. All thoughts are my own.

 

[sirspamalot]

We. Are. Screwed.