Health Law

Physician Involvement in Medicare Fee Setting Questioned

By Todd Rodriguez

Hot on the heels of the online article in the Wall Street Journal focusing on questionable physician billing practices and Medicare's Carrier Standard Analytic File database, another recent online Wall Street Journal article is now questioning the propriety of physician involvement in setting the relative values used to establish Medicare physician fees.  Citing the potential conflict of interest in having physicians decide how much their own services are worth, the article takes aim at the American Medical Association's Relative Value Scale Update Committee or the RUC as it is commonly known -- which the article refers to as a "secretive committee".  The article suggests that the RUC's disproportionate specialty representation and reliance on survey data which may in some cases be insufficient results in "out of whack" physician fees.   

Full post as published by Physician Law on October 28, 2010 (boomark / email).