President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a defense appropriations bill that includes a provision postponing the implementation of physician payment cuts mandated by Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula.
Obama signed HR 3326, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, thus delaying until March 1, 2010, a 21.2% cut in physician payments called for by the SGR formula, according to the American College of Radiology (ACR) of Reston, VA.
Many physician groups are hoping that the delay will give Congress time to implement a permanent fix to the SGR formula, based on the Medicare Economic Index.
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