WASHINGTON, March 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, LUGPA, a professional association representing more than 25 percent of the nation's practicing urologists, urged the U.S. Senate to expeditiously vote on the bipartisan SGR repeal bill, which overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House of Representatives this morning.

By a 392-37 vote, the House has sent H.R. 2, the bipartisan Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2015 bill to the Senate. President Obama has indicated his support for the bill and would sign it into law.

"While we applaud the huge bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives to protect our seniors, the Medicare program and the physician community, our work is not over," said Dr. Gary Kirsh, LUGPA's president. "On behalf of independent urologists, we urge Senators to hear the overwhelming support for this bill from seniors and physicians and pass this bill."

The SGR formula has been dysfunctional and led Congress to enact 17 patches in the past 12 years to avoid ever increasing payment cuts to physicians. The payment cuts required by this SGR formula are cumulative and have ballooned over time from just five percent to over 21 percent – leading nearly every health care policy expert and patient group to believe it will undermine both access to and quality of care, and support this bill to repeal it.

LUGPA joins physician groups nationwide in strongly supporting this legislation, which will reward value over volume, streamline onerous and duplicative regulations and provide desperately needed stability and certainty in payment structure.

"This is a historic opportunity to improve our nation's healthcare by doing away with the flawed SGR formula," said Kirsh. "We are counting on the U.S. Senate not only to support this bill, but also to allow this bill to come to a vote before recess tomorrow."

LUGPA represents urology group practices in the United States, with more than 2,200 physicians who make up more than 25 percent of the nation's practicing urologists. LUGPA and its member practices are committed to best practices, research, data collection and benchmarking to promote quality clinical outcomes. For more information, visit lugpa.org.

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SOURCE LUGPA