Congress Urges CMS to Adequately Reimburse Physicians for Advance Care Planning

This week, 34 Members of the House of Representatives, sent a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator, Marilyn Tavenner, to adopt recommendations that would adequately reimburse Medicare providers for having voluntary discussions about end-of-life care and planning with patients.



Currently, the time doctors spend having discussions with their patients about end-of-life care and planning is not reimbursed under Medicaid and Medicare. Without this incentive, these conversations are not happening.



The AMA recently created dedicated CPT codes to capture end-of-life planning conversations.  The letter urges CMS to include the codes in the Medicare Physician Payment Schedule for 2015.