Congress wrapped up its business in 2024 by failing to stop a fifth consecutive year of physician pay cuts that are threatening access to high-quality care, but Medicare Advantage (MA) plans learned from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that they are in line to get an average pay boost of 4.33% from 2025 to 2026.

Physicians, by contrast, are seeing 2.8% across-the-board cuts due to a broken and unsustainable Medicare payment system that especially affects patients with disabilities and those who live in rural areas. The congressional failure in late 2024 came despite AMA’s leading the charge to reform the Medicare payment system to avoid what AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD, has called an “oncoming crisis” in medical care.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.