News | Radiology Business | October 03, 2019

The proposed policy would significantly reallocate payments within the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2021 toward Medicare evaluation and EM services

The Capitol Building in Washington, DC

The American College of Radiology (ACR) has asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) not to go forward with a proposed policy to significantly reallocate payments within the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2021 toward Medicare evaluation and management (E/M) services.

The proposed policy would greatly benefit some physicians, but penalize many who rarely bill for E/M services, including radiologists and radiation oncologists. Due to the potential impact of this proposal, the College is calling on the Congress to intervene. ACR will ask the Congress to suspend budget neutrality requirements in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and act to prevent physicians who rarely bill for E/M services from bearing the costs of increasing E/M payments to others.

The ACR supports reducing physician burden and paperwork requirements in documenting their services, another provision within this proposal, but this should not be done on a budget neutral basis that shifts the cost of such proposals to other providers.

“E/M services account for about one quarter of all Medicare dollars. The proposed CMS policy would reallocate tens of billions of those dollars, which goes beyond the appropriate scope of the power of the Executive branch and rightly deserves to be debated in Congress. Only Congress can waive the “zero sum game” of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. ACR will work to get legislation to remedy this proposal considered by Congress,” said William T. Thorwarth, MD, FACR, chief executive officer, American College of Radiology.

For more information: www.acr.org


Related Content

News | Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

September 28, 2023 — Siemens Healthineers has announced the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance of the Magnetom ...

Time September 28, 2023
arrow
News | Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS)

September 26, 2023 — Exo (pronounced “echo”), a medical imaging software and device company, today unveiled a category ...

Time September 26, 2023
arrow
News | Artificial Intelligence

September 25, 2023 — Viz.ai, a leader in AI-powered disease detection and intelligent care coordination, today announced ...

Time September 25, 2023
arrow
Feature | Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) | By Robert L. Bard, MD, and Lennard M. Gettz, EdD

Since the advent of the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exam on human patients in the late 1970s, this innovation ...

Time September 25, 2023
arrow
News | Cardiac Imaging

September 21, 2023 — Declines in cardiovascular procedure volumes observed early in the COVID-19 pandemic greatly ...

Time September 21, 2023
arrow
News | X-Ray

September 21, 2023 — Scientists in Moscow have successfully engineered a prototype detector for X-ray and PET/CT ...

Time September 21, 2023
arrow
Feature | Radiation Oncology

The radiation oncology community lost a leader this past summer, with the passing of Jay Loeffler, MD, FACR, FASTRO. He ...

Time September 21, 2023
arrow
News | Enterprise Imaging

September 20, 2023 — aycan, a recognized leader in medical imaging, announced today a new solution for reviewing DICOM ...

Time September 20, 2023
arrow
Feature | Radiation Dose Management | By Melinda Taschetta-Millane

Early-stage detection is key to the prevention of life-threatening diseases; however, limited access to data hinders the ...

Time September 20, 2023
arrow
Feature | Ultrasound Imaging | By Mustafa Hassan, PhD

Handheld ultrasound has not yet reached mainstream adoption, but the market is still forecast to reach over $500 million ...

Time September 20, 2023
arrow
Subscribe Now