The fact is that a growing and aging population coupled with a growing demand for health services will raise costs. This requires additional revenue. Provider costs, especially employee labor costs, rise every year. Don’t believe the absence of a Medicare update is neutral. You lose by the amount of price inflation of the goods and services you personally purchase PLUS the increased overhead costs you bear in your practice.

The fact that Medicare reimbursments overall remained the same this year means you probably suffered a 7% net decrease in buying power when everything is accounted for.

Every professional job gets paid more each year to keep up with inflation. It’s not like Doctors are getting faster and faster at seeing patients or reading xrays. Health care is not a product that gets cheaper as production increases, it gets more expensive because the people providing this service need more money to keep up with the rising costs of everything in life(food, homes, health care!).

Medicare should be increasing reimbursements unless the cost of providing a specific service has decreased (eg speculum for pap smear now costs less).