In response to the decision on Thursday by the U.S. House of Representatives to approve legislation preventing a pending 24 percent cut to Medicare physician pay rates for another year, Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council President and CEO Steve Love was interviewed by Bill Hethcock of the Dallas Business Journal in his blog posted March 27.



The decision essentially postpones the pain that would have hit doctors on April 1.

“Hospitals support physicians receiving fair and equitable Medicare payments and are glad they will not be subject to a 24 percent decrease,” Love said in the blog. “Hospitals also support a permanent fix to the physician payment issue.”

The permanent fix should answer the question of how it will be paid for, and it should do so without forcing hospitals or other providers to foot the bill, Love said.

House passage of the so-called ‘physician fix’ sends it to the Senate with just days left before the cut takes effect. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation, Love said.

Hethcock is the health care, law, education and nonprofits reporter for the Dallas Business Journal. The full blog can be found here.