Although this legislation averts the immediate crisis, it pushes to the future smaller cuts that will have the same cumulative impact. The ACR is committed to an ongoing long-term campaign to reform this system by addressing flaws in the physician fee schedule system that lead to annual cuts, revisiting the sequestration policies specific to Medicare, and encouraging Congress to find cost savings in areas of healthcare beyond provider pay that do not risk patient access to care. At the very least, we will encourage Congress not to wait until the last minute to address this annual threat; automatic cuts and last-minute legislative actions highlight the need for substantive reforms. We will ask that Congress formulate a more efficient plan for doing the right thing when it reconvenes early next year.
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