Increasing Access For Medicare Beneficiaries

The cuts called for in the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), if enacted, will lead to reimbursement reductions of upwards of 30 to 50 percent for imaging services that patients and their physicians rely on to properly detect, diagnose, and treat life-threatening conditions. A delay in the implementation of these cuts is essential in order to give Congress a chance to fully understand how cuts of this magnitude could affect Medicare beneficiaries' access to imaging services. In addition to calling for a two year moratorium on the implementation of the cuts, my legislation also calls for a comprehensive Government Accountability Office (GAO) study to analyze the impact of the DRA's payment methodology on patient access, with special attention to rural and medically underserved areas.

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