Hot Topic: Medicare Fee Schedule Update

Posted: March 9, 2025

On Saturday, March 8, U.S. House Speaker Johnson (R-LA) released the text of a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government through the remainder of FY 2025 (September 30, 2025). 

The proposed CR is essentially a "clean CR" and simply extends the policies passed by Congress in their December 2024 package and, with the exception of new funding for defense and VA, does not address any of the dozens of critical policies that Congress failed to address in their December 2024 spending package.

Of special concern is that House leadership did not include additional funding to fix the 2025 Medicare Fee Schedule in the proposed CR.  As noted in this previous APTA article, in December 2024 Congress ultimately passed a 'continuing resolution' or CR that funded the government through March 15, 2025, and extended telehealth waivers, but failed to provide extra funding to address the 2025 fee schedule.  It was expected additional funding for the fee schedule would be included in this new spending package.

Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC), APTA, AMA, and other health care provider groups have been pushing to include the APTA-supported Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act of 2025 (H.R. 879) in the legislative package.  H.R. 879 sponsored by Rep. Murphy would fully eliminate the 2.8% fee schedule cut and provide for an inflation adjustment starting April 1.  On February 28, 2025, APTA joined AMA and 90 other national health care provider groups in a joint letter to the U.S. Congress urging them to include H.R. 879, the Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act, in the spending package.  As you know, APTA has also been engaging our grassroots network over the past several months on this issue.

The spending package does maintain current telehealth flexibilities under Medicare through September, as well as extending the Medicare work geographic index floor.

The CR is not but any means a "done deal" given the slim Republican majority in the House. Rep. Murphy (R-NC) has threatened to vote against any CR that does not contain a fee schedule fix.  A vote by the full U.S. House could come as early as Tuesday. If it passes the House, the CR will need to obtain sixty votes to pass the Senate. This will require at least seven Democrats to join with the 53 Republicans to meet the 60-vote threshold.

APTA is continuing to work with AMA and our coalition partners to push for the inclusion of additional funding in the CR to fix for the 2025 Medicare Fee Schedule over the next several days.  We will be launching a grassroots campaign for members and patients to make calls to Capitol Hill beginning Monday morning.

Congress has until midnight on Friday, March 14 to pass a spending package or face a government shutdown.