Proposed Medicare cuts looming as part of the health reform initiative in the works has had its share of negative prognostications from the primary care camp for some time now. The assumption is that, as a combination of specialties, primary care will continue to hemorrhage its numbers until factors like Medicare/Medicaid payments to providers would stabilize — or even increase.

But, it’s another issue altogether when specialists of a certain stripe coalesce to rally and lobby for the same type of CMS reform. A coalition of medical subspecialists (cardiologists) believe that there is room in the health care reform debate for initiatives that put patients first in preserving access to quality cardiac care. In many rural areas^[1] in the country, where “outsourced” diagnostic services are rendered by healthcare organizations to provide mainly Medicare and Medicaid subsidized procedures, the threat of cuts in payment has these docs worried. | LINK

1. Privately insured urban areas would also be affected by cuts in provider payments. [↩]

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