Idet?

[emd123]

Anyone still doing IDET?

Was just looking over the Medicare fee schedule and CMS increased reimbursement for IDET by 10-12%?

http://www.asipp.org/documents/Physcians2013Final.pdf

WTF?!

You decrease reimbursements for the things that work, and increase it for procedures that don't?

What ridiculous message does that send?

Start doing IDET?

Insane.

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[bedrock]

I noticed that they increased payments for several procedures that are performed less than they were in the past. Probably so they can tell some committee they only decreased pain payments by x percent (say 5%) not 10% when that actually decreased payments for procedures that we still perform by 15%.


If u look it up, I'm sure the code for bloodletting with leaches went up by 20% this year.

 

[lord_jeebus]

My favorite is how they boosted intermediate joint injection at the expense of major and small joints.

 

[Aether2000]

Especially since IDET has not been a covered benefit by Medicare since 2008
http://www.whatismedicalinsurancebilling.org/2010/08/billing-thermal-procedures-cpt-22526.html

 

[powermd]

Especially since IDET has not been a covered benefit by Medicare since 2008
http://www.whatismedicalinsurancebilling.org/2010/08/billing-thermal-procedures-cpt-22526.html

Why would a payment be listed, let alone adjusted, for a procedure they don't even cover?

Truly baffling, unless you buy into one of the conspiracy theories above. I guess it would be consistent with what they did with joints, (ie, increase reimbursement on a less utilized procedure to achieve something approaching budget neutrality).

 

[Aether2000]

Medicare is not supposed to make sense.

 

[stim4u]

actually IDET can be covered by medicare if appealed.
the problem is that 99% of medicare patients are not candidates for this procedure based on disc height, protrusion size, symptoms,etc.

 

[emd123]

My favorite is how they boosted intermediate joint injection at the expense of major and small joints.

Yeah, no kidding. It used to be that small joint paid the least, a little more for intermediate and the most for large joint (which was backwards to begin with.) It's much harder to get a needle in a finger joint than a knee.

Regardless, now intermediate pays the most, followed by large joint, then the least for small joint. Make sense? Pfft! Of course not. Because....large joint is billed the most (knee, hip) so they cut it. There's no thought involved. The more you do it, the more they cut it. You don't do it (IDET, small joint), "Sure we'll pay more for that! As long a you don't actually DO that procedure."

It's a stupid game.

I wonder how long it'll take them to cut in office kypho from $8,000 to $80.


The ultimate goal is for no doctor to do anything, and no patient to receive any care. Why pay for anything? Medicaid doesn't. It's riduculous. When do we say, "Enough's enough"?