Image by jen-the-librarian via Flickr
Report by Frank Cohen
Frank Cohen, MPA, MBB
The Frank Cohen Group, LLC
As many of you may already know, July 1, 2010 CMS released yet another RBRVS (Resource Based Relative Value Scale) data set that will be used to pay physicians under Medicare effective June 1, 2010. This data set includes the 2.2% increase in the CF. This puts the current conversion factor at $36.8729.
The link to the CMS file is here.
The good news is that the Conversion Factor (CF) increased by 2.2%.
The bad news is that for 2,226 procedure code/modifier groups within the database, the RVU (Relative Value Unit) values decreased by anywhere from 0.65% to 50% (or 0.01 to 2.04 RVUs). The median change was only 0.12 RVUs, which in and of itself doesn’t seem like much, but if you add them up, you get a total reduction of 492.95 RVUs for just these procedure codes.
This doesn’t consider frequency of use. For example, procedure code 75825 26 saw a reduction in RVUs of 1.16. In 2008, this procedure was reported to Medicare 60,864 times. That results in a net decrease in RVUs to those practices of 70,602 RVUs. At the current conversion factor, that is a payment reduction of $2.6 million.
In addition to the RVU changes, there were 180 non-RVU changes, including changes to the PC/TC (Professional Component/Technical Component) policies, new records, modified status, etc.
Note: Frank ran a side-by-side analysis of the changes for these procedure codes. If you would like a copy of his worksheet, go to his site and click on the Download tab. Even if you don’t want this file, he has lots of other goodies on his site for free. As always, thanks Frank!
