Over the past few months, MOAA's Government Relations staff has worked feverishly with The Military Coalition and the American Medical Association to convince Congress to prevent further cuts in Medicare and TRICARE payments to doctors. We've met with individual legislators, spoken at press conferences, and compiled statistical evidence to document burgeoning problems with provider access. Our members have responded with a flurry of letters, emails, and phone calls to Capitol Hill. Now, those efforts are paying off.

On February 13, the House and Senate passed an omnibus FY2003 appropriations bill (H.J.Res 2) which includes a provision to stop the planned 4.4% payment cut that had been scheduled to take effect on March 1, and increase payments by 1.6% instead. It also would authorize a correction to the erroneous payment formula that got the payment rates out of whack. The change will increase payments to doctors by an aggregate $49 billion through 2012.

On February 20, the President signed H.J. Res. 2 into law.

This is a huge victory - not just for Medicare beneficiaries, but for all military TRICARE beneficiaries, since TRICARE rates are linked to Medicare's. Reversing the downward payment spiral is essential to retaining and increasing provider participation in these important health programs.

While this is great news for the short term in that it will prevent additional providers from dropping participation in Medicare and/or TRICARE, much remains to be done to make TRICARE more attractive to providers.

Feedback from the Pentagon and the Hill indicates MOAA members have been doing their part by mailing in the tear-out letters on this subject in the February Military Officer magazine. The three separate letters were pre-addressed to the Secretary of Defense and to the Chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. One Capitol Hill source told us, "We've received so many of those letters, we've stopped counting them and started weighing them." 

Now our focus is turning to identifying the areas of the country experiencing the greatest problems using TRICARE. If you have had a problem finding a TRICARE Standard provider, and you haven't already taken MOAA's access survey, please visit and answer a few simple questions about your difficulties. Just a few minutes of your time will help give us the data we need to fight for your interests.