The final rule, released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last week, includes a 5% reduction in Medicare payment rates for physician-related services. It also increased the value of the work component of several evaluation and management services. Changes take effect on January 1, 2007.
The rule also increases the work component for the relative value units (RVUs) for evaluation and management services. This is the result of a review of RVUs that is conducted every five years with the American Medical Association's Relative Value Update Committee (RUC). CMS estimated that changes from the review would increase expenditures by approximately $4 billion in a year. CMS accepted all of the RUC's recommendations on the 400 codes that physician groups suggested for review and the 150 suggested by CMS.
For example, the work component for RVUs associated with an intermediate office visit, the most frequently billed physician’s service, is increasing by 37%. The work component for RVUs for an office visit and for a hospital visit requiring moderately complex decision-making increase by 29% and 31%, respectively. Both of these services rank in the top 10 most frequently billed physicians’ services out of more than 7,000 types of services paid under the physician fee schedule.
Extension of the oncology demonstration project offered in 2005 and 2006 “remains under consideration,” according to the published rule.
http://www.accc-cancer.org/MEDIA/media_newsfeed.asp
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/press/release.asp?Counter=2044
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