Medicare patients know well just how difficult it can be to find a doctor to treat them. Unless Congress acts quickly, this problem is about to go from bad to much worse.

On Nov. 29, Congress passed a one-month Medicare patch providing a temporary reprieve for seniors and the physicians who care for them. In January, without action by Congress, Medicare payments to physicians will be cut by 25 percent. If that happens, many more doctors will drop out of the Medicare program — or refuse to accept new Medicare patients. If a payment cut takes effect, people in Medicare who are able to find a doctor may have to travel further to be treated and wait longer for an appointment.

A payment cut would hit Mississippi especially hard. About 490,000 Mississippians could lose their doctors or have trouble finding a new one.

AARP wants Congress to act immediately to prevent seniors from losing their doctors and future retirees from having to give up the doctors they trust. By taking action during its lame duck session, Congress can give seniors the security they’ve earned.

Seniors in Mississippi have worked hard over many years to earn their Medicare benefits. When the money comes out of our paychecks for the Medicare tax, it doesn’t come with an asterisk warning, “Doctors may not be available.” People who are in the program now count on the security and peace of mind that they get from seeing the doctors they trust. Those who are not yet old enough for Medicare are counting on being able to find a doctor when they need one and are looking to Congress to act to meet its responsibility to keep doctors in the Medicare program.

In 1997, Congress created a system known as the Sustainable Growth Rate — or SGR — to pay doctors in Medicare. This system was originally designed to hold down physician costs by setting limits on spending. However, the system underestimated how much Medicare would spend on tests and procedures for seniors, which caused physician fees to be reduced to stay within spending limits.

For almost 10 years, Congress has averted recurring deadlines in reimbursement rates by applying a band-aid. Each time it has done that, the wound has gotten larger — and more expensive to fix. Now, if Congress fails to block the 25 percent cut, Medicare won’t be able to pay doctors what it costs to care for seniors.

We hear a great deal from our leaders about the adverse effect of uncertainty on planning. What about the fearful effect of uncertainty on people who have paid into the Medicare system all of their adult lives? Is it fair that they should have to worry not only about illnesses that may strike but also about the availability of doctors to treat them? Finding a doctor who will see you shouldn’t be like playing the lottery or winning a raffle. It should be something we can count on, year after year.

As people in Medicare try to maintain their health, our elected officials in Washington have a responsibility to keep doctors in Medicare so they can work to keep their patients as healthy as they can be.

At AARP, we’ve surveyed our members and found they want Congress to come together and find a solution that will stop this cut so they can keep seeing the doctors they count on.

The bottom line is, on an issue so critical to today’s seniors and future generations, members of Congress need to move beyond partisan finger pointing and stop a drastic cut to Medicare doctors that could undermine seniors’ health. Failure to take this step would mean undermining the trust seniors have in Medicare — indeed the trust of every American who will depend on Medicare some day.

Now that the election is over, we’ll see if members of Congress from both parties are really listening.

Bruce W. Brice Sr. is a Natchez resident and the AARP Mississippi state president.