The U.S. Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has announced that Medicare payments to radiologists would increase 4% next year under the agency's proposed 2001 physician fee schedule.
The schedule represents the third year of a four-year transition from payments based on doctors' historical charges to payments based on the resources required to provide services. Each year brings the system closer to full reliance on resource-based RVUs, or relative value units, to determine reimbursement. The 2001 schedule is based 75% on RVUs, and 25% on historical charges, HCFA said.
More than 7,000 services and procedures are covered under the schedule, which would increase total physician payments under Medicare by about $2 billion next year, HCFA said. Payments for different medical specialties are adjusted separately, and payments for one specialty -- cardiac surgery -- will actually decrease by 3%, according to the agency.
The schedule covers Part B Medicare payments to physicians, and is separate from the proposed hospital outpatient prospective payment system (HOPPS) that will cut reimbursement for the technical component of many outpatient radiology services by nearly one-third following its implementation on August 1.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writersJuly 21, 2000
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