Panel blasts Medicare physician fee schedule.

This final rule with comment period addresses certain provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, as well as making other changes to Medicare Part B payment policy. These changes are intended to ensure that our payment systems are updated to reflect changes in medical practice and the relative value of services. This final rule with comment period also discusses geographic practice cost indices (GPCI) changes; requests for additions to the list of telehealth services; payment for covered outpatient drugs and biologicals; payment for renal dialysis services; policies related to private contracts and opt-out; policies related to bone mass measurement (BMM) services, independent diagnostic testing facilities (IDTFs), the physician self-referral prohibition; laboratory billing for the technical component (TC) of physician pathology services; the clinical laboratory fee schedule; certification of advanced practice nurses; health information technology, the health care information transparency initiative; updates the list of certain services subject to the physician self-referral prohibitions, finalizes ASP reporting requirements, and codifies Medicare's longstanding policy that payment of bad debts associated with services paid under a fee schedule/charge-based system are not allowable. We are also finalizing the calendar year (CY) 2006 interim RVUs and are issuing interim RVUs for new and revised procedure codes for CY 2007. In addition, this rule includes revisions to payment policies under the fee schedule for ambulance services and the ambulance inflation factor update for CY 2007. As required by the statute, we are announcing that the physician fee schedule update for CY 2007 is -5.0 percent, the initial estimate for the sustainable growth rate for CY 2007 is 2.0 percent and the CF for CY 2007 is $35.9848.

Fee Schedules↗

PubMed2006

Kidney Failure? Dialysis is the only medical service without automatic inflation updates from Medicare. Some people are trying to change that.

According to Robert Provenzano, left, president of the Renal Physicians Association, just because dialysis providers have shown strong profits does not mean an automatic update for Medicare reimbursement for dialysis isn't necessary. Unlike other medical products and services, which saw payment increases of 107% between 1990 and 2006, the increase in dialysis payments didn't even hit 7% during that period.

Fee Schedules↗

PubMed2006

Medicare physician payments and spending.

The Medicare program's physician payment method is intended to control spending while ensuring beneficiary access to physician services, but there are signs that it may not be working. The physician's role in the health care delivery system as the primary source of information and treatment options, together with growing demand for services and the imperfect state of knowledge about appropriate service use, challenge Medicare's ability to achieve these two goals. This issue brief describes the history of physician spending and the contribution of escalating service use and intensity of services to the rise in Medicare outlays, setting the stage for further discussion about the use of the Medicare payment system to control spending and ensure access.

Fee Schedules↗