ByStephanie Condon, CBS News, March 31, 2014, 7:03 PM
With no time left to spare, the Senate on Monday passed a bill to ensure that Medicare reimbursement rates to doctors aren’t cut.
The bill is only a temporary modification to the Sustainable Growth Rate, which makes cuts to Medicare reimbursements to keep costs under control. Had Congress failed to pass the so-called Medicare “doc fix” before Tuesday, Medicare reimbursements to physicians would have been cut by about 24 percent. The legislation passed Monday staves off that cut for another year.