08/06/2026
I urge any of you to reach out to congress via this link regarding Medicare cuts that if passed will change medical care significantly. Physicians more than ever are talking about going cash pay only and not accepting insurance, as private practices cannot continue to cut overhead and still give the care we give now.
Go to this website:
https://www.aad.org/member/advocacy/contact-congress-medicare-cuts
I have below something you can copy and paste if you’d like:
As a constituent, I am writing to ask for your urgent help in protecting senior access to dermatologic care.
The proposed CY 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule includes severe payment cuts that directly threaten local healthcare access. CMS estimates that the rule will reduce overall Medicare payments for dermatology by approximately 9%.
A practicing dermatologist in your community depends on strong clinical and administrative support to care for patients. A 9% payment cut jeopardizes a practice’s ability to pay for staff who answer phones, assist in exam rooms, and navigate burdensome paperwork. When practices are forced to trim clinical support, doctors spend less time seeing patients and more time doing administrative work. This creates appointment bottlenecks and restricts timely access for the Medicare patients.
Unlike hospitals, physicians and independent practices do not receive an automatic annual inflation update under Medicare. Asking local practices to absorb a 9% cut on top of years of unaddressed operational inflation is completely unsustainable.
• 50% Cut to Same-Day Care (Modifier 25): CMS proposes an arbitrary 50% payment reduction for evaluation visits provided on the same day as a medically necessary procedure. Same-day care is the gold standard of patient-centered medicine. It enables seniors and rural patients to get a suspicious mole evaluated and biopsied during the very same visit as their other medical concerns, saving travel time and avoiding delays in diagnosis. Existing Medicare valuation rules already adjust for shared overhead during same-day visits. Slashing payment by half penalizes efficient care and jeopardizes Medicare beneficiaries' access to care.
• Volatile Practice Expense Formula Changes: CMS is proposing to phase out longstanding practice expense indices, arbitrarily redistributing funds away from specialty care. Local practices, which cover 100% of their operational, staffing, and administrative expenses, have zero cushion to absorb these sudden financial shifts.
To protect Medicare beneficiaries' access to timely care and ensure local practices remain viable in our district, I ask that you take concrete action:
Urge CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and agency leadership to withdraw the proposed 50% payment reduction for same-day services appropriately reported with Modifier 25.
Contact your legislators to oppose cuts to Medicare physician payments. Select your category to send a message to Congress using the AADA’s Action Center.
