The New Law on Medicare's Payments to Physicians

Abstract

The federal government, persuaded by the results of a massive study and the argument of organized medicine that primary care physicians should be better compensated for the services they deliver, has enacted legislation moving Medicare toward better compensation through the construction of a new schedule of payments. But Congress, striving to balance the conflicting economic interests of patients, payers, and providers, went well beyond rationalizing Medicare's payments, adding provisions intended to check the volume of delivered services by constraining expenditures, to place greater limits on physicians' balance-billing practices, and to bolster government efforts to improve the quality of care by . . .