Medicare Cuts Planned for 2021 Will Affect PT Services and Undermine Patient Access to Vital Care
By Nikesh Patel, PT, Executive Director, APTQI, and Terrence D. Sims, President of Strategic Growth and Marketing, Raintree Systems
The COVID-19 pandemic has already dealt a major financial blow to physical, occupational, and speech therapists and other specialty healthcare providers. But things are going to get substantially worse in 2021 if Congress does not act to stop the Medicare cuts to 33 specialty services set to go into effect on January 1.
In its CY2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule, CMS stated it was moving forward with across-the-board cuts of 9% to physical and occupational therapy services, and reductions ranging from 4% to 11% in other specialties ranging from pathology to anesthesiology to radiology. To understand why requires a little bit of background.