On May 20, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee will hold a hearing examining the Medicare Physician Fee Schedules (MPFS) and opportunities for reforms. The hearing will specifically look at efforts under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) and potential ways to "move beyond annual doc fixes and enhance seniors' quality of care." The hearing, which is part of the Energy and Commerce Committee's ongoing Affordability Series, will be livestreamed at 2:00 p.m.

On May 21, the House Ways and Means Committee also plans to mark up the ASTRO-supported Provider Reimbursement Stability Act (H.R.8163). This bipartisan bill increases the budget neutrality threshold from $20 million to $54.3 million and indexes the threshold to inflation. The bill would also require updates to direct costs used to calculate practice expense RVUs every five years and limit year-to-year variance in the conversion factor by 2.5%. These policies help address MPFS flaws that have negatively impacted radiation therapy reimbursement over the last decade.