Doctors are warning that next year’s proposed Medicare proposal would lead to cuts for thousands of procedures, causing a significant decline in reimbursements for hospital services.
Medicare’s proposed doctor fee schedule for next year includes a base rate hike of 2.5 percent. However, its efficiency adjustment will lower payments by 2.5 percent for thousands of procedures.
Why It Matters
Lawmakers aimed to reform Medicare payments to increase efficiency for common procedures, but reduced payments could cause some patients to suffer.
Across the country, nearly 70 million Americans rely on Medicare for health insurance.
What To Know
The new proposed rule has drawn thousands of comments from doctors alleging that the proposal is illogical and would actually end up hurting Medicare’s unstable physician payment system.
“As one of only two Infectious Disease specialists in Southwest Louisiana, providing care to a very large number of patients on Medicare/Medicaid, the proposed cuts will force me to consider either restricting access to those populations or just retire, both decisions being equally painful,” one proposal commenter said.
If enacted, the proposal would lead to 37 percent of oncologists facing a cut anywhere between 10 and 20 percent, while 80 percent of infectious disease providers would get a cut of 5 percent or more, according to the American Medical Association.
“Reducing Medicare reimbursement will affect my ability to delivery high quality patient care. Every year our business expenses go up, including the cost of staff salaries and equipment purchases and Medicare reimbursements keep going down,” another physician commenter from California wrote. “It is becoming too much to bear.”
The CMS released its physician fee schedule for 2026 in July, and the efficiency adjustment would cause cuts to more than 7,000 services. That amounts to roughly 95 percent of doctor services, according to the AMA.
“One of the largest provisions in the current bill involves reducing reimbursements for specialists,” Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek. “Many physicians warn that these cuts could force them to either restrict access to patients or retire altogether. Costs continue to rise while reimbursements fall, which eventually leads to fewer doctors available and less care being provided.”
Medicare reimbursement has already declined by 33 percent from 2001 to 2025, according to the association.
Newsweek reached out to CMS for comment via email.
What People Are Saying
Thompson told Newsweek: “Physicians are facing higher operating costs but declining reimbursement, which creates a business decision no doctor wants to make—either cut back on the amount of care offered or close their doors entirely. Neither outcome benefits patients. I do see these cuts moving forward because the current administration views Medicare as rife with waste and believes that trimming reimbursements will save money.”
Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: “Medicare’s reputation among healthcare providers has grown vastly more positive with time, thanks in large part to the reliability of the payments system when compared to other insurance options. The decision to scale back on payments for certain plans and procedures is maddening to many physicians, as one of the last consistent sources of reimbursement is in their minds becoming more challenging for their patients to access.”
What Happens Next
As more Americans retire into Medicare, the payment adjustments could make the difference between a positive and negative health outcome.
“As the American population gets older in increasing numbers, future recipients of funding need to know they won’t encounter significant difficulties when accessing their benefits,” Beene said. “That, paired with backlash from physicians, may lead to these proposed cuts never seeing the light of day.”
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