AHA: Cardiologists Face Major Payment Cut But Still Back Reform

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AHA/17019

By Peggy Peck, Executive Editor, MedPage Today
Published: November 15, 2009

ORLANDO -- In this exclusive MedPage Today InFocus™ video report, the vice president of the American College of Cardiology sounds an alarm about the potentially devastating effects of planned Medicare payment cuts to its cardiologists, but but he says payment concerns are unlikely to weaken the ACC's longstanding support for healthcare reform.

David Holmes, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., talked about healthcare reform and the need to keep the ACC's position on it separate from the College's current battle with Medicare, which has become the ACC's top priority.

The payment problem is especially frustrating because the decision to cut reimbursement to cardiologists was based on bad data, and ACC has been frustrated in its efforts to study those data, Holmes told Peggy Peck, MedPage Today's Executive Editor.