A bill has been introduced in Congress to tie the Medicare physician payment schedule to the Medicare Economic Index, a move that is essential to protecting access to high-quality care for the 65 million older adult Americans covered by Medicare.

By instituting an annual inflation-based update, the legislation would put physicians on equal footing with virtually all other health professionals and organizations paid by Medicare. Physician payment rates have been subject to a six-year payment freeze that will last until 2026 and are seeing 2% across-the-board Medicare pay cuts that started in January.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.