On November 30,
CMS released the 2010 Final Rule for the MPFS. Radiation oncology did not see
the reduction in the RVUs that were in the Proposed Rule released in July of 2009.
CMS determined that the increase to the equipment utilization percentage does
not apply to expensive therapeutic equipment and the large practice expenses RVU
reduction was decreased and will be phased in over 4 years.
CMS has also
finalized changing the status indicator for inpatient and outpatient
consultations to I = Not valid for Medicare purposes. Therefore
consults
will not be utilized
for Medicare patients but
established and new patient visits
will be billed.
The Final Rule
does state the 2010 conversion factor to be
$28.4061 which is substantially lower than the 2009 conversion factor of
$36.066. Congress has taken legislative actions to prevent decreases to the
conversion factor for the last several years which may happen again for calendar
year 2010. If the legislative action is successful the conversion factor will
have a 0.5% increase.
Click here to review an outline of the procedure codes commonly utilized in the radiation
oncology setting with the RVUs from the 2010 Final Rule. The payments have been
calculated showing the 2010 payment with the reduction in the conversion factor
as finalized in the 2010 Final Rule and also with the legislative increase of
a 0.5% higher conversion factor than the 2009
conversion factor, i.e.,
$36.066, in order to show
all of the possibilities. Please respond to this email with any questions.
Ron
DiGiaimo, MBA
President, Revenue Cycle,
Inc.
"Official Billing/Coding Consultant to
ACRO"
|
2010 Final
Rule for the MPFS