Medicare on Friday followed through with its earlier proposal to reduce payment for surgeries, outpatient procedures, and other services it believes can be done more efficiently starting in 2026.
The controversial move represents a significant change to how thousands of physician services are priced under Medicare. It’s a blow to the powerful physician lobby that has long controlled how procedures are priced, and could help ensure more equitable pay among specialists and primary care doctors.Â
The so-called efficiency adjustment assumes that advances in technology and standardized workflows have cut down the time and expense necessary to perform certain procedures — changes that reimbursement hadn’t accounted for. Those services will see a 2.5% cut to reimbursement beginning Jan. 1, 2026, while time-based services like office visits or behavioral health therapy will not. Telehealth and certain maternity services will also be unaffected.Â
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