Revising Medicare's Physician Fee Schedule — Much Activity, Little Change

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
What garners attention when it comes to Medicare's payment rates for physicians is the annual drama over possible 11th-hour congressional intervention to prevent cuts under the sustainable growth rate formula. But behind the scenes, Medicare policymakers have been focusing on another aspect of the periodic adjustments: the updating of the relative values in the physician fee schedule and the accuracy of the data on which it relies. Since 1992, Medicare has paid physicians through a fee schedule according to a resource-based relative-value scale (RBRVS). This approach was intended to address distortions produced by basing payments on prevailing charges, which had . . .