The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) for 2017. The American College of Radiology (ACR) said a number of proposals in the new rule are favorable for radiology.
The 2017 MPFS will include a conversion factor of $35.7551, a slight decrease from the current conversion factor of $35.8043. The change reflects a 0.5% update required by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), a budget neutrality adjustment, and an adjustment due to the 5% multiple procedure payment reduction for the professional component of imaging services, the ACR said.
CMS believes the changes will result in a 1% decrease in radiology payments, the ACR noted. Interventional radiology will see a 7% decline, while there will be no change to nuclear medicine payments.
CMS announced in the new rule that it is targeting January 2018 for the implementation of clinical decision support (CDS) based on appropriate use criteria. The agency had originally targeted January 2017 but said in November 2015 that it wouldn't be able to meet that target.
The new MPFS rule also includes the addition of three new mammography codes in 2017 that bundle mammography with computer-aided detection (CAD) when the two are performed together. By bundling these codes, CMS will delete mammography codes 77055-77057 and CAD codes 77051 and 77052.
Other updates include the finalization of a payment rate of $5,557 for a technologist PACS workstation, and a proposal to price a professional PACS workstation at $14,616.93.
