CRITICAL UPDATE: Medicine is at a crossroads. Physicians are now moving to employment over private practice due to overburdensome regulations and financial incentives to do so. Facilities can pay doctors significantly more than they make in private practice and this increased pay gap widens every day while we fail to increase payment in private practice with inflation (hospitals get inflationary updates). All of this costs consumers more money. One example shows that Medicare pays a doctor $250 for an injection in the office in private practice but a doctor employed by their health system costs $750 for the same procedure. Given that many of these healthcare systems have insurance contracts that are 3x or more of Medicare, that gap widens dramatically. Meanwhile, United Healthcare is continuing its meteoric rise (along with others in the health insurance sector). One profit scheme is through upcoding and cherry picking patients in the Medicare Advantage program, which is now estimated to cost taxpayers $80B annually above what it would have cost through Medicare. Much of the money to cover that $80B is coming from Medicare Part B, the fund used to pay physicians. Dr. Oz just testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee and committed to attacking these payment schemes. Senator Cassidy referenced a bill he is working on to prevent upcoding. Others on both sides of the aisle agree that something must be done. What do we need to do? Return that money to Medicare Part B and use those savings to pay for the permanent fix, putting physicians on par with all others in healthcare by giving them mandatory annual inflationary updates. Investing in our physicians will ultimately save the healthcare system money by encouraging more self-employed physicians. This can all be done with our upcoming reconciliation process. Leadership in both the Senate and House have committed to doing “something” about physician pay in the reconciliation. It’s time we speak up and demand we don’t just do something…. Let’s do something BIG! Let’s fix the fee schedule once and for all. Let’s do it on the backs of insurance companies that have been stealing from American taxpayers through various Medicare Advantage schemes. Let’s invest in the future of our healthcare system by supporting small businesses (physician practices), which are the backbone of our economy. All of this takes effort and money. 1) Support your favorite medical PAC 2) Call your Members of Congress and tell them how important these changes are The stars have aligned to make a big change, but it only happens if EVERYONE in medicine pulls together and demands the change. Decide to be a change agent. Fight for your patients. Fight for your profession. Fight for your colleagues.