Congress Set to Decrease Cuts to 2024 Medicare Fee Schedule

Congress is poised to pass legislation that will reduce cuts to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) which took effect on January 1. The legislation increases the MPFS by 1.68% and extends several expiring Medicare policies in addition to funding multiple Federal government agencies.

Calculations by the American Medical Association indicated that total cuts to occupational therapy services for 2024 were 3.1% before passage of this legislation – slightly less than the cuts to the overall Fee schedule which were 3.4%. With passage of this legislation, occupational therapy claims processed after March 9 will instead be cut by an average of 1.42% compared to payments for these services in 2023.

While AOTA is grateful that Congress took action to reduce these cuts, we are frustrated that Congress has allowed any cut to go into effect, especially after several years of cuts to the MPFS. AOTA worked with a large coalition of healthcare providers to convince Congress to stop the 2024 MPFS cuts, and we will work with this same coalition to push forward much needed reforms to the Medicare system.

The most recent cuts are the result of flaws in the way the MPFS is structured, and Congress must begin to address these issues. However, in addition to fixing flaws in the overall MPFS, Congress must also address specific challenges faced by therapy providers. Therapy providers have been particularly hard hit in recent years due to a combination of policies passed before the current MPFS was implemented, reimbursement cuts to services provided by therapy assistants and dramatic increases to the value of codes billed by primary care providers.

We have been sharing this story with Congress. Also, AOTA has worked together with other therapy groups including the American Physical Therapy Association, the American Speech Language Hearing Association, the American Society of Hand Therapists, and others to create policy priorities, specific to therapy, that Congress must include in MPFS reform.

We will continue this fight, we will continue to demonstrate to Congress the impact of their policy choices on occupational therapy practitioners and the Medicare beneficiaries who benefit from their services, and we will continue to advocate for the long-term fixes needed to properly recognize the value of therapy services.