Responses by Steve Levine, Texas Medical Association (Excerpted)

6:03 pm, Jan. 5, 2011:

Below is the timeline we discussed.

Dec. 2009: 21% Cut Delayed to March 1
March 3: 21% Cut Delayed to April 1
Cut goes into effect for two weeks, Medicare holds physicians’ payments for those two weeks
April 15: 21% Cut Delayed to June 1
Cut goes into effect for more than three weeks, Medicare holds physicians’ payments for more than two weeks
June 24: 2% Increase, Retroactive to June 1, Effective Until Nov. 30
Nov. 29: Cut (now 23%) Delayed to Dec. 31.
Dec. 9: Cut (now 25%) Delayed to Dec. 31, 2011

Improving the Health of All Texans

Texas Medical Association
www.texmed.org

Austin, TX 78701

1:15 pm, Jan. 10, 2011:

The constant uncertainty over a much, much larger cut combined with five weeks of held payments made it bad very bad. What we're talking about here is physicians' perceptions, which can't be measured as objectively as you're trying to do. Finally, we've had all those intervening years of cuts hanging over their shoulders. That creates a growing sense of miasma.