Annals of Long Term Care

House and Senate Consider Spending Measure That Would Guarantee Funding for Title VII Geriatrics Health Professions Programs in FY 2008
Title VII Geriatrics Health Professions Programs would receive $31.5 million in federal funding in fiscal year (FY) 2008 under a proposed measure the House and Senate were considering as this issue of Annals of Long-Term Care went to press in early July. Legislators included funds for the programs in the spending measure following an AGS Health in Aging Advocacy Center campaign on behalf of continued funding. If approved, the measure would guarantee that the programs are funded at their current level in FY 2008, which begins October 1.

Congress eliminated all funds for Title VII Geriatrics Health Professions Programs--geriatric faculty fellowships, the geriatric academic career awards program, and the nation's Geriatric Education Centers--in FY 2006. AGS and Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs (ADGAP) members, and the AGS, in coalition with other organizations, immediately launched campaigns urging restoration of funding. Congress restored funds for the programs this February, earmarking $31.5 million for the remainder of FY 2007. Since February, AGS staff and the Society’s Washington, DC, consultants, WolfBlock Public Strategies, have continued to educate Congress and Congressional staff about the critical importance of Title VII Geriatrics Health Professions funding in an effort to keep these much needed dollars in the FY 2008 budget.

Many thanks to the AGS and ADGAP members and other supporters of quality healthcare for older adults who have joined Health in Aging Advocacy Center campaigns on behalf of funding for these programs. Your involvement was and will continue to be crucial. The budget process is still in its early stages, and AGS plans to launch additional campaigns on behalf of the programs in the near future. If you haven't yet done so, please visit the advocacy center, www.americangeriatrics.org/advocacy, and join these and other efforts aimed at ensuring older Americans access to quality healthcare.

Increased Medicare Outlays for Physician Services Are Mainly the Result of Increased Volume and Intensity of Services, Rather than Reimbursement Rate Changes, Report Finds
Increases in Medicare spending for physician services has largely been due to increased volume and intensity of these services, rather than to changes in physician reimbursement rates, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report.

Medicare reimbursement rates have fluctuated since 1998, when Medicare adopted the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, which mandates cuts in physicians' payment rates when increases in expenditures for physicians' services outpace growth in gross domestic product. (See related story below.) Between 1997 and 2005, Medicare spending on physician services rose 79.2%, the report notes. After adjusting for changes in the cost of providing these services and for growth in the number of Medicare beneficiaries, however, spending on physicians' services increased just 34.5% during that period. This growth, the report concludes, "is explained by growth in the volume and intensity of physicians' services rather than by changes in Medicare's payment rates."

"In fact, the quantity of services that physicians provided during that period increased by slightly more--39.4%--than did Medicare's per-beneficiary spending on physician services," the report notes.