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Though this is the proposal, the numbers speak for themselves.
How closely did previous year proposed RVUs match actual?
Damn. -9 to -11% on most of the big ticket items...
Damn. -9 to -11% on most of the big ticket items...
Seriously call your ****ing Congress people
Don't worry, the CAP has our back. They'll lobby CMS diligently on our behalf and get the 9% overall cut reduced to 8%. Then they'll spend the next year patting themselves on the back and telling us how lucky we are to have them.
There's always the option of protesting. Imagine if pathologists threatened to not sign out reports for 2 weeks in protest of the cuts... radiologists threatened to not read imaging for 2 weeks... etc. That would get peoples' attention pretty quickly.
Right as Med school loans get to an all-time high. Normally professional societies would come together to protect their turf in situations like this. Reducing supply of pathologists would probably be beneficial.Agree the numbers speak for themselves.
Most pathologists now expected to sign out 5000-6000 cases per year which is double the average workload of 20 years ago.
View attachment 315066
View attachment 315065
For surgical pathologists do not own a lab and are trying to survive off of professional component billing of 88304, 88305, 88307, 88309, 88312, 88313, 88341, 88342 - what do we now have?
Pick 88305 ($34.32) as an average case and also be generous and state that 6000 cases generates 1500 IHC stains.
With new fee schedule:
6000 cases x $34.32 = 205920
1500 IHC x $30 = $45000
So by doing a crapload of work you can generate $250K in billings.
Anyone who does not think salaries will be affected is in denial imo.
How was it in 2010?
View attachment 315069
Great field to be in, work doubles and pay goes down!!!
I agree with you. But it’s worse than that. Not only are the cases going up per pathologist and reimbursement going down, but the expectation of quality in the diagnosis is going up too such as CAP checklists, granularity in separating out entities, etc.Agree the numbers speak for themselves.
Most pathologists now expected to sign out 5000-6000 cases per year which is double the average workload of 20 years ago.
View attachment 315066
View attachment 315065
For surgical pathologists do not own a lab and are trying to survive off of professional component billing of 88304, 88305, 88307, 88309, 88312, 88313, 88341, 88342 - what do we now have?
Pick 88305 ($34.32) as an average case and also be generous and state that 6000 cases generates 1500 IHC stains.
With new fee schedule:
6000 cases x $34.32 = 205920
1500 IHC x $30 = $45000
So by doing a crapload of work you can generate $250K in billings.
Anyone who does not think salaries will be affected is in denial imo.
How was it in 2010?
View attachment 315069
Great field to be in, work doubles and pay goes down!!!
Great point!!! Such as computing the percent of cancer in each prostate core biopsy.
For surgical pathologists do not own a lab and are trying to survive off of professional component billing of 88304, 88305, 88307, 88309, 88312, 88313, 88341, 88342 - what do we now have?
Pick 88305 ($34.32) as an average case and also be generous and state that 6000 cases generates 1500 IHC stains.
With new fee schedule:
6000 cases x $34.32 = 205920
1500 IHC x $30 = $45000
So by doing a crapload of work you can generate $250K in billings.
Anyone who does not think salaries will be affected is in denial imo.
How was it in 2010?
Agree the numbers speak for themselves.
Most pathologists now expected to sign out 5000-6000 cases per year which is double the average workload of 20 years ago.
View attachment 315066
View attachment 315065
For surgical pathologists do not own a lab and are trying to survive off of professional component billing of 88304, 88305, 88307, 88309, 88312, 88313, 88341, 88342 - what do we now have?
Pick 88305 ($34.32) as an average case and also be generous and state that 6000 cases generates 1500 IHC stains.
With new fee schedule:
6000 cases x $34.32 = 205920
1500 IHC x $30 = $45000
So by doing a crapload of work you can generate $250K in billings.
Anyone who does not think salaries will be affected is in denial imo.
How was it in 2010?
View attachment 315069
Great field to be in, work doubles and pay goes down!!!
[/QUOTE
^^agree and great post
you have to be involved with CP these days to survive. AP only will not cut it anymore. I truly feel sorry for anyone who’s career is based only on AP sign out.
I’m a dermpath and I don’t even know where u got that crazy salary! I wish I got a fraction of that number! I can’t even afford a second car! We are living paycheck to paycheck on coupons with tons of students loans sigh... our 88305 already got cut a few years ago.. seems like when everyone else salary goes up ours just goes down... something is wrong here! I hope this proposal doesn’t go through bc my rent is pretty high right now and I have 2 kids to support!I feel sorry for the dermpaths making 600-700k a year as well.
“Our” means “pathology”... Dermpath doesn’t come close to that salary that u quoted... I feel bad for our (pathology) specialty in general... ppl should get raises with time not pay check cutsOur 88305? Everyone’s got the same 88305 lol
Some do just ask the guy with the name of Mario. On average most make less but do well.“Our” means “pathology”... Dermpath doesn’t come close to that salary that u quoted... I feel bad for our (pathology) specialty in general... ppl should get raises with time not pay check cuts
There's always the option of protesting. Imagine if pathologists threatened to not sign out reports for 2 weeks in protest of the cuts... radiologists threatened to not read imaging for 2 weeks... etc. That would get peoples' attention pretty quickly.
Don't know but CMS as of late doesn't really care what the value of our professional expertise is. They tend to stick to their guns and make the cuts anyway. In the few years I've been paying attention to the fee tables, I've only seen reversals on the TC side of the equation, which only affects a minority of pathologists - but I'm always welcome to be shown otherwise.
If you were paying attention since 2013 would have seen that TC was cut about 50-55%.
There have been a few increases in TC in the last few years that might be a return of 5% total.
So don't get too jealous of the TC side. It has been a terrible decade for labs billing TC.
TC fared better in this fee schedule. I think that the component costs effects the work time rather than materials.
Either way this is another bummer.
If you were paying attention since 2013 would have seen that TC was cut about 50-55%.
There have been a few increases in TC in the last few years that might be a return of 5% total.
So don't get too jealous of the TC side. It has been a terrible decade for labs billing TC.
TC fared better in this fee schedule. I think that the component costs effects the work time rather than materials.
Either way this is another bummer.
True,but the ANTHEM BCBS cuts to 40% below MEDICARE certainly stuck.Not to be overly optimistic and sound like a 'Sunshine Sally'; but, don't wanna be a 'Negative Nellie' either. The key word is "Proposed" cuts. When these numbers get brought forth to CMS, there's no guarantee what the final fee schedule is until it is officially released.
In general, once the cuts are made they’re basically permanent as long as someone is willing to cash the meager checks.True,but the ANTHEM BCBS cuts to 40% below MEDICARE certainly stuck.
True, but our group and all private groups in our state unified and sent a letter of refusal to BCBS not accepting their fee schedule. In addition, we preemptively notified administration of our hospitals to prepare them for any potential blowback. So far, 8 months later, we have held our own on the BCBS payor mix by billing out of network without taking a loss of revenue. In fact, it’s slightly higher now that we have been going out of network. It is a small victory, but better to take a ‘W’ than a ‘L’.
As far as the CMS fee schedule, this happens every year for the past decade or more. They always “propose” an average of a 7-10% decrease. Pathologists squawk, and then they say, “Ok, we’ll only make it 2-4%!” As if they’re throwing us a bone to make us feel better. In reality, it is the grim collectivization of the health care model which will slowly erode the last bastions of entrepreneurship in pathology and medicine as a whole. Death by a thousand cuts…
We routinely get 12 core prostate biopsies from the in office lab. In office labs serve no purpose in helping patient management from what I’ve seen thus far. We usually call in our diagnosis anyways and even then they are busy with their clinical work. They either don’t call us back until a few hours later or the next day.The decrease in payments is a long term trend and I don't see an end to it unless the supply of pathologists decreases. So I agree with the majority of commentators on this forum. I do think that our profession is at least partly to blame and by this I mean the abuse of 88305 by pathology groups.
Most subspecialty labs have abused this. I'll use GU pathology as an example because it was the most egregious in my opinion. Most on here know the hx. We went from 2 to 6 then 12 and sometimes as many of 20 biopsies on a walnut sized organ with no clinical justification. I believe six is totally justified for routine cases. GU pod labs exploded, many with basically self referral by urologists. After about a decade CMS caught on and changed the compensation. Now it is rare to see over six biopsies in my experience. Another abuse was 88342 and again the coding got changed. CAP did nothing to stop pod labs, so much money was produced. CAP is about money not pathology in my opinion.
The tragedy of this is that resections, especially with all the additional work added are woefully under-compensated. Our profession is so weak that I think private practice positions will continue to pay less but still require longer hours. I know several experienced colleagues whose hours changed from 45 to 60 hours or more per week with no increase in compensation and the increase was due to resections and related tumor boards etc, not biopsies. If anyone here sees a brighter future for private practice, please comment. My only thought is that if there is a shortage of pathologists then hospitals will see our value. This and not letting credentialed clinicians send their biopsies out to subspecialty labs might stave off some the impending decline. Just a thought.
Opinion | The Business of Health Care Depends on Exploiting Doctors and Nurses (Published 2019)
One resource seems infinite and free: the professionalism of caregivers.www.nytimes.com
The only specialty with lower USMLE scores than pathology is family medicine. Many weak students have little choice besides family medicine and pathology these days.
Agree fully. Procedures should pay for the effort in time- a 4 block 12 slide breast core biopsy takes much more time and effort than a GI or Derm but has equal billing. A colectomy with LN dissection is poorly compensated. How about when the high volume cases go to out of state labs but you get the resections. Two examples: 1.Prostate- The clinician tells me you must do all you can to find the prostate cancer because what am I going to tell the patient. How are my 2 extra hours dealing with this fairly compensated? If we got the biopsies it would be justified of course. 2.Skin- My former practice didn't do the derms but we had extensive frozen sections for margins for plastics with no access to the diagnosis until we called back the results. So why is it that as a general pathologist I am not qualified to read skin but very qualIfied to read skin margins and melanoma resections? If a practice does't get the bread and butter but gets more time consuming cases how can a general hospital practice survive without stagnating compensation and having longer hours? Now pathologist are complaining since corporate medicine has figured out how to get the high volume cases and reward the company while the dermpaths, Gi, prostate biopsy paths, etc are pushing more and more slides for less pay. These companies know that there are an excess number of fellows available to hire with the oversupply. Some of these companies spend far more on sales people to get more cases than compensation for their pathologist I have heard but hope it is not true.In what other business do customers get to set their own prices for goods or services? Only in medicine...
But do we have to accept the CMS fee schedule, as well as that of other insurers?
Is it illegal for us to reject it and set our own fee schedule, and if CMS or other insurances pay below our set fees for service, we bill the patients for the difference?
What if pathologists banded together via CAP or another organization and set our own fee schedule based on the actual costs of tests in terms of reagents, tech and pathologist time (with some sort of adjustment index to modify fees based on the cost of living for a lab's location)? If insurers agree to compensate according to our schedule, they are considered "in network" by all member labs of the organization, and are billed "at cost" per the schedule. And if they do not accept our schedule, they are considered out of network and are billed our fee schedule plus a 20-30% markup to cover cost of collection, and patients get billed for any shortfalls in insurance coverage.