ED Coding and Reimbursement Alert

New legislation tables 25 percent drop in 2011 Medicare pay.ED practices won't face the same feeling of uncertainty about pay rates this year as they did in 2010, thanks to a Senate Finance Committee bill that will freeze Medicare pay at current levels for another 12 months.On Dec. 29, 2010, CMS released Transmittal 828, which lists the Medicare Conversion Factor for 2011 as $33.9764. This is about a 7.9 percent drop from last year, but because of increases to the ED E/M code RVUs for 2011, the net pay difference will only be about 3 percent lower than in 2010.Also, on Dec. 15, 2010, President Obama signed the Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act (MMEA) of 2010 into law, delighting the AMA."The AMA welcomes bipartisan House passage of legislation to stop the Medicare physician payment cut for one year," said AMA president Cecil B. Wilson, MD, in a statement on Dec. [...]