Office physicians get break in proposed fee schedule
If you provide services to your Medicare patients primarily in office settings, your Medicare payments may increase slightly next year under the new fee schedule proposed by the Health Care Financing Administration.
Physicians who provide services primarily in the hospital setting can expect slightly lower payments, according to HCFA’s proposed fee schedule, published in the July 22 Federal Register. The final fee schedule will be published this fall.
The new fee schedule relates payment to actual resources used to provide services, rather than physicians’ historical charges, says Michael Hash, deputy administrator for HCFA.
The resource-based component of the Medicare fee schedule is being phased in during a four-year transition period that began in 1998. Next year’s fee schedule will be a combination of 50% of the resource-based practice expenses and 50% of the old schedule, which is based on charges.
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