On December 29, 2007, President Bush signed into law S. 2499, the “Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007.” As discussed in the last edition of Washington Watch, the bill makes numerous changes to Medicare policy, including providing a 0.5 percent increase in physician fee schedule payments (instead of the scheduled 10.1 percent cut) through June 30, 2008. In light of this change, CMS is extending the Medicare physician enrollment period through February 15, 2008. Reed Smith is preparing a client memo summarizing the legislation. In the meantime, additional information about the measure is available here. Separately, on December 26, the President signed H.R. 2764, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, which funds HHS for FY 2008 and includes a number of health policy provisions.