GOP SGR plan would ease docs toward Medicare pay-for-performance model

Under its new proposal to replace the Medicare physician payment formula, the House GOP plan would provide physicians with a stable, pre-set fee schedule to allow an eventual transition to alternate payment models. After that transitional period, payments would be linked to performance measures and other quality metrics. Physicians' Medicare payments in the future would be based in part on quality metrics relative to their peers, their own performance from previous years, and clinical improvement activities, according to an updated proposal from House Republicans. GOP lawmakers released on Wednesday a more fleshed-out proposal of their plan to repeal Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula which determines physician payments and replace it with a plan to reward value and efficiency.