ASE Joins Letter to the Congressional Doctors Caucus Providing Comments on Modernizing MACRA

On January 16, ASE joined the Alliance of Specialty Medicine in sending a letter to the House Republican and Democratic Doctors Caucuses regarding MACRA modernization. The letter addresses critical concerns about the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) and calls for comprehensive reforms to the Quality Payment Program. The Alliance highlights that Medicare physician payments have declined 33% from 2001 to 2025 when adjusted for inflation due to MACRA’s lack of automatic yearly inflation adjustments, forcing many physicians to sell their practices to health systems and private equity groups. The letter urges Congress to establish permanent payment stability solutions, improve specialist access to Alternative Payment Models (APMs), reform the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) to reduce administrative burdens, and terminate the recently finalized Ambulatory Specialty Model.

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. The Society continuously advocates for meaningful MACRA reforms that include an annual inflationary update tied to the Medicare Economic Index, greater access to specialty-relevant APMs, and a streamlined quality reporting system that recognizes the unique value of cardiovascular imaging in patient care.