By Peter Sullivan - 10/14/16 10:46 AM EDT
The Obama administration on Friday rolled out its long-awaited rules for shifting how Medicare pays doctors, implementing changes made by a bipartisan law Congress passed last year.
The changes are part of the administration’s larger effort to shift healthcare payments away the traditional system of paying doctors a fee for each test or procedure provided, and toward a system that rewards doctors for improving patient health.
In the long run, the goal is to save Medicare money and encourage doctors to provide higher quality care.
The changes announced Friday are the result of the “doc fix” law that Congress passed in 2015, which replaced a system of impending cuts to physician payments that lawmakers put off in an annual Washington ritual.
The changes in Medicare payments through the new law have been a rare area of bipartisanship in healthcare policy.
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http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/300995-white-house-rolls-out-major-shift-in-medicare-payments
