Ophthalmology and Optometry Coding Alert

Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rate won't be cut 23 percent.Although the government appeared poised to take a big bite out of your next Medicare Part B payments, you now have another month before you need to worry about losing pay. That's because the 23 percent Medicare Physician Fee Schedule conversion factor cut that practices have feared since January was once again kicked to the curb by Congress.On Nov. 18, the Senate voted to halt the Medicare physician pay cut for one month, and the House returned from Thanksgiving break on Nov. 29, at which point they also voted to freeze Medicare pay through the end of 2010.As most practices know, last June, Congress voted to not only delay a 21 percent cut to your Medicare pay, but to increase your revenue by 2.2 percent. However, that vote only kept the cuts at bay through November 30.Medicare pay is set to [...]