Trends in Medicare Reimbursement and Work Relative Value Unit Production in Radiation Oncology
| Autor: | S.R. Nandalur, Charles C. Vu, T. Lanni |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
medicine.medical_specialty
Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System Medicare Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services U.S 030218 nuclear medicine & medical imaging Reimbursement Mechanisms 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Fee Schedules medicine Humans Production (economics) Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging Medical physics Radiation oncologist Reimbursement Relative value business.industry Relative Value Scales United States Resource-based relative value scale Work (electrical) 030220 oncology & carcinogenesis Radiation Oncology business Relative value unit |
| Zdroj: | Journal of the American College of Radiology. 15:870-875 |
| ISSN: | 1546-1440 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jacr.2018.02.005 |
| Popis: | Purpose Medicare payments to individual physicians are released annually by the CMS. The purpose of this study is to analyze trends in Medicare reimbursement and work relative value unit (wRVU) production to radiation oncologists. Materials and Methods The Medicare Physician Supplier and Other Provider Public Use File and the CMS Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value Files (to calculate wRVUs) for the calendar years 2012 to 2015 were used in this analysis. Medicare reimbursement was aggregated for each calendar year. Using the CMS Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value Files, the number of Medicare wRVUs was calculated for each radiation oncologist. Results In 2015, 4,323 radiation oncologists produced 12,895,298 wRVUs compared with 11,352,286 wRVUs produced in 2012. These datasets include only Medicare reimbursements and do not include wRVUs from private insurance or other payers. In 2015, radiation oncologists produced a median of 2,486 wRVUs from Medicare (range 3 to 24,349). Billing to Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System Code 77427 (radiation treatment management, five treatments), a proxy for total radiation treatments, fell from 1,111,670 in 2012 to 1,039,403 in 2015, a decline of 7%. Conclusion The total number of wRVUs produced by radiation oncologists has risen by 14% from 2012 to 2015. However, the number of external beam radiation fractions has declined by approximately 7% over this same period, likely due to a trend toward hypofractionated courses of treatment and use of special treatment modalities such as proton beam therapy or stereotactic body radiation therapy. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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