AMNews: Aug. 10, 2009. Health reform bill awaiting House return retools public plan to encourage doctor participation ... American Medical News

By David Glendinning, AMNews staff. Posted Aug. 10, 2009. Physicians who choose to accept patients enrolled in the public plan option would not be tied to Medicare rates. In one of the more significant changes for physicians to the original language, an amendment stipulated that the federal government would negotiate doctor rates directly under a public insurance plan option. The bill initially would have tied public plan payments to Medicare rates. Under the latest version, negotiated physician rates could not be lower than Medicare's, nor higher than the average rates paid by private plans that will compete with the public option in a national health insurance exchange. The new language also more clearly spells out the process that physicians could use to opt out of the public plan if they didn't want to accept patients who had chosen that option. Both changes were backed by the American Medical Association, which supported the passage of the amended House bill. The legislation retains provisions that would overhaul the Medicare physician payment system to align rates more closely with the costs to doctors of providing care. Read More