ASE Joins Letter of Support for the Provider Reimbursement Stability Act

On April 24, ASE joined the Alliance of Specialty Medicine to send a letter to Representatives Greg Murphy and Tom Suozzi expressing support for H.R. 8163, the Provider Reimbursement Stability Act. The Alliance urged Congress to modernize and update the budget neutrality mechanism of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) to bring greater stability to physician reimbursement and patient access. The letter outlined key structural flaws in the current system — including the failure to account for inflation, irregular updates to practice expense data, and the non-return of savings when utilization projections overestimate actual use — and warned that continued year-over-year payment reductions are forcing practices to limit Medicare patients, consolidate with larger health systems, or close entirely.

ASE strongly supports these efforts, as inadequate Medicare reimbursement directly threatens echocardiography practices’ ability to maintain the advanced equipment, specialized staff, and quality standards necessary to provide essential cardiac imaging services to Medicare beneficiaries. Cardiovascular imaging depends on expensive, rapidly evolving ultrasound technology and highly trained professionals whose wages have risen in a competitive labor market, yet CMS has gone years without updating the cost inputs that determine reimbursement. The Society continuously advocates for meaningful reforms that ensure stable and accurate Medicare payment, which is essential to preserving patient access to lifesaving cardiac imaging.