SGR Fix Passes with No Amendments

Clear sailing for President's signature, but what changed?

After surviving multiple objections, including accusations of eight violations of Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (H.R.2) was overwhelmingly passed by the U.S. Senate today, after an extended session to consider and vote on six potential amendments, all in an effort to head off a 21% pay cut for the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) reimbursements to physicians, scheduled to go into effect after midnight. Few of the proposed amendments came close to passing, and the final vote on the bill was 92 Yes and 8 No. The bill now enters the process to be signed by President Obama, who has stated he would sign the bill into law as soon as he receives it from Congress.

See my vote-by-vote report of last night's historic session on the Senate floor.

What really changed vis-à-vis the RAC?

The changes made by MACRA (p. 249 in the PDF, under Section 521) involve H.R. 4302 Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (aka PAMA, Public Law 113–93; 42 U.S.C. 1395ddd note, see p. 5 in the PDF), and change the language such that Recovery Audit Contractors are restricted from performing patient status reviews through September, 2015. See the complete text, with changed language noted with {} brackets and red text, in a separate article.