Today’s Managing Health Care Costs Indicator is $330 billion The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued its draft 2012 payment rules yesterday. The payment rules give modest increases to ambulatory facility fees, tie ambulatory surgery fees to quality reporting, and make some much-needed changes in imaging reimbursement. The headline is that these draft payment rules cut physician fees by almost a third, as required by the sustainable growth rate formula. This is the automatic trigger that has been overridden by Congress every year (or more) since 2002. Just about no one thinks this is a good idea. Physician payment increases in Medicare have been substantially less than those offered by other payers, and in some communities it's hard to find a physician taking new Medicare patients. Click to Enlarge Ginsburg, New England Journal 12/10 The cost of physician services keeps on going up, and no efforts to lower utili...