Press Release
November 9, 2023
CMS’ New Rules on Physician Reimbursement
In a new insight, Health Care Policy Analyst Jackson Hammond summarizes the major updates in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) recently released Calendar Year (CY) 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) final rule.
Key points:
- CMS’ CY 2024 Medicare PFS final rule contains a variety of payment and policy updates for physician services, which will result payment rate decreases of 1.25 percent in 2024 for practitioners, with total payments to providers in 2024 estimated to remain constant at $89 billion.
- Evaluation and management visit payment increases, as well as new marriage and family therapy and mental health counselor benefits, are responsible for the decreased payment rates due to budget neutrality rules.
- CMS is also implementing several social determinants of health (SDOH) policies, including separate payments for services intended to address SDOH difficulties faced by patients as well as increase the availability of patient navigation services.