Take Action

The expertise, experience, and perspective of physicians and physician assistants practicing in Washington is crucial to helping to inform our advocacy on your behalf. And, it's often crucial in helping to inform legislators' decision-making on policy being debated at the state and federal levels.

On this page, we'll highlight some of WSMA's top advocacy priorities where lawmakers need to hear from physicians and PAs directly.

Tell Congress to Cancel Medicare Cuts!

In what amounts to a "perfect storm" of payment cuts going into effect on Jan. 1, physician practices face the following stack of Medicare financial hits amounting to a 9.75% cut. These include:

• Expiration of the current reprieve from the repeatedly extended 2% sequester stemming from the Budget Control Act of 2011. Congress originally scheduled this policy to sunset in 2021 but it will now continue into 2030.
• Imposition of a 4% Statutory PAYGO sequester resulting from passage of the American Rescue Plan Act. Should lawmakers fail to act, it will mark the first time that Congress has failed to waive Statutory PAYGO.
• Expiration of the congressionally enacted 3.75% temporary increase in the Medicare physician fee schedule (PFS) conversion factor to avoid payment cuts associated with budget neutrality adjustments tied to PFS policy changes.
• A statutory freeze in annual Medicare PFS updates under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) that is scheduled to last until 2026, when updates resume at a rate of 0.25% a year indefinitely, a figure well below the rate of medical or consumer price index inflation.

These cuts, if allowed to go into effect, would lead to fewer primary care providers, limited access to specialists, a disruption in care, and additional barriers to life-saving treatment.

Now is the time to build on that momentum and demand that Congress take action to address these devastating Medicare cuts before it's too late. Please take a moment and contact your senators and representative to tell them to cancel the cuts.