Daily Briefing for November 5, 2026

Medicare cuts physician pay 2.31% for 2027, deeper than it proposed

The voices on this episode are generated, and so is the script, from the day's post at Physician in the Loop. Every fact in the post links to its source.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services cut the physician fee schedule conversion factor 2.31% for 2027 on Wednesday, to $32.63, a deeper reduction than the 1.68% it proposed in July.

Clinicians in qualifying alternative payment models take a 1.83% cut. Most of the decline reflects the expiration of a one-year 2.5% increase for 2026, partly offset by statutory updates of 0.25% and 0.75%, Medical Economics reported. The same rule pays 20% less for a visit billed the same day as a minor procedure, replaces the G2211 add-on with modifiers worth 16% or 32% of a visit, and tightens remote monitoring billing. A companion outpatient rule raises hospital rates 2.3% and creates Medicare's first payment category for AI and other software services.

"Physicians will once again begin the year with lower rates as practice costs continue to rise," the American Academy of Family Physicians said, according to Chief Healthcare Executive. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said fee-for-service payment "has rewarded volume over value."

In this episode

• Medicare cuts the physician conversion factor 2.31% for 2027 and pays 20% less for visits billed the same day as minor procedures
• Medicare creates its first payment category for AI and other software services and moves 14 algorithm-only lab tests out of the lab fee schedule
• Medicare limits remote monitoring to established patients and delays its ban on outside monitoring vendors to 2029
• Federal regulators push out two surprise-billing arbitrators, one of which sided with clinicians in 89% of 2023 cases
• A South Dakota health system blocks OpenEvidence after finding a physician storing more than 100 patient records in it
• Patients of athenahealth practices can now send their records into Claude, and the company says HIPAA does not apply
• Philips sets aside $322 million to settle Justice Department criminal and civil probes of its 15 million-device CPAP recall
• Pennsylvania confirms a sixth measles death as its outbreak reaches 1,467 cases and 283 hospitalizations