Congress is now seriously considering funding the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) Repeal bill in part with a 60% reduction in Medicare payment to hospital outpatient departments for echocardiography services, to the levels paid in physicians’ offices. Adoption of this cut would jeopardize the quality of echocardiography services provided in hospitals, jeopardize the jobs and working conditions of cardiac sonographers employed by hospitals, and put many hospital echo labs in the “red.” Read more here.
January 16, 2014 By