ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert

2013 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule:

Look to Telemedicine Rather Than Transition of Care Codes for Increased Revenues

Although RVUs seem flat, the SGR and budget neutrality adjustments could impact your pay in 2013.Although there are minimal changes to the RVUs of ED relevant codes in the 2013 Medicare Fee Schedule released Nov.6, you'll still be facing a Sustainable Growth rate (SGR) driven reduction in the Medicare conversion factor which would drop 26.5percent to $25.0008. Read on for expert analysis of the most ED- relevant issues that will impact your group payments next year.The final rule includes Tables 134 and 135 that offer estimates on the impact of the 2013 physician fee schedule provisions by specialty. Caveat: Both by RVU changes and the impact of various policies (PPIS, MPPR utilization, TCM) the estimated impact for emergency medicine is zero percent for 2013. However, those estimates do not take the impending SGR cut of 26.5 percent into consideration.The work RVUs for ED E/M and observation codes were unchanged, but [...]
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