Radiology Coding Alert

RVU increases help make up for the 7.86 percent decrease.

President Obama may have locked in a zero percent adjustment to your 2011 Medicare Part B payments last month, but that doesn't mean your practice should be calculating your fees using last year's rates.

In fact, the 2011 conversion factor is slightly lower this year than what you were collecting in 2010, according to an "emergency update" to the 2011 Fee Schedule that CMS issued on Dec. 30.

Your 2011 conversion factor will stand at $33.9764, "a net reduction of 7.86 percent from the 2010 conversion factor of 36.8729," said Frank Cohen, of The Frank Cohen Group LLC in a Dec. 29 analysis of the change.

Keep in mind: Your reimbursement depends on a number of factors, including multiplying the conversion factor by the individual codes' relative value units (RVUs). Many codes saw RVUs increase in 2011, so a decrease in the conversion factor doesn't automatically mean you'll see a decrease in reimbursement for a particular code.

Dig deeper: The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010, which was signed into law on Dec. 15, established a payment update for 2011 of zero percent. To cover the cost of the legislation, Medicare had to modify provisions in the proposed 2011 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule, which altered some of the relative value units (RVUs), as well as the conversion factor.

To read CMS's transmittal regarding the emergency update, visit www.cms.gov/transmittals/downloads/R828OTN.pdf.