New Final 2014 Physician Fee Schedule Published

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calvnandhobbs68 said:
Psych with the 6% bump looking better and better.

There was a thread about this same thing not that long ago though.
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The actual data was just released today, lol.

I made a thread months ago on the proposed schedule, but this is the final one.
 
Um, can someone summarize that sputum in 10 lines or less?
 
Anastomoses said:
Um, can someone summarize that sputum in 10 lines or less?
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Only physicians getting bumps in Medicare payments next year are psychiatrists. Everyone else is either getting a cut or essentially standing still while chiropractors get a 12% bump. Most of the reimbursement decreases are going to specialists.
 
Slack3r said:
I was under the impression pathologists weren't reimbursed very high (I suppose with the exception of dermatopath). I don't understand why they're getting hit so hard.
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I don't have access to newer data, but the 2010 MGMA puts the average pathologist salary at $377k/yr.
 
Write your congress representatives over and over. Every month, send them the same letter.

If you want change, you need to work for it. Instead of spending 1.5 trillion dollars on a fighter jet the Air Force never even wanted, we could actually pay for the things this country needs. Until that happens, we'll continue to take it up the ass. So today, take 30 minutes, an hour, write out a letter and email it to your congress representatives and keep emailing it every month. Contrary to belief, they do read what their constituents say, it's just that those who scream the loudest tend to not have our interests in mind. It's time to change that.

Otherwise, bend over and take it because there's not much else you can do.
 
Do Congress reps actually read letters? I'd imagine they'd ignore a good chunk of them, especially if they are more than 1-2 sentences long.

Congrats to the chiropractors. After all their years of hard work and service to the back, they get that bling bling.
 
This is a CMS issue, not really a congressional one. It's amazing that Medicare spends so much on Derm services.
 
TheWeeIceMan said:
Pain is getting it pretty good too.
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The stated cut is 4%. Don't believe it. Our practice does a lot of epidurals and 50% of our practice is payors tied to MDC, so the impact on our revenue is more like 30%!

If I were a graduating med student I'd try to pick a specialty factoring in the high likelihood that we're aiming at a system similar to Britain where 75% of the population gets something like the NHS, and 25% are private/cash pay.

If I had it to do over again, it would be derm, psych, or dentistry! I would have seriously loved to be an ortho (in hindsight), but one day they will be on the chopping block too.
 
everyone has been talking about cardiology getting massive cuts…but according to this there is no cut at all, in fact it is going up by 1%. Are the proposed massive cardiology cut talks floating around SDN referring to something else?
 
powermd said:
The stated cut is 4%. Don't believe it. Our practice does a lot of epidurals and 50% of our practice is payors tied to MDC, so the impact on our revenue is more like 30%!

If I were a graduating med student I'd try to pick a specialty factoring in the high likelihood that we're aiming at a system similar to Britain where 75% of the population gets something like the NHS, and 25% are private/cash pay.

If I had it to do over again, it would be derm, psych, or dentistry! I would have seriously loved to be an ortho (in hindsight), but one day they will be on the chopping block too.
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So are you favoring primary?
 
This is kinda funny. These changes don't make any sense with anyone's stated or even theoretical policy goals. Anesthesia and ER are lifestyle specialties more popular now than ever, and they go up 1 and 2% respectively. Family medicine has a 0% net adjustment. There's a whole bunch of other incongruities, but hey, whoever said CMS adjustments need to make sense?
 
Raryn said:
This is kinda funny. These changes don't make any sense with anyone's stated or even theoretical policy goals. Anesthesia and ER are lifestyle specialties more popular now than ever, and they go up 1 and 2% respectively. Family medicine has a 0% net adjustment. There's a whole bunch of other incongruities, but hey, whoever said CMS adjustments need to make sense?
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My understanding is that medicare doesn't pay very much for anesthesia. Anesthesia is subsidized by the much much higher rates of private insurance. If everyone paid medicare rates they'd make like FP money.

Again I could be wrong, I'm not super confident on this area.
 
powermd said:
The stated cut is 4%. Don't believe it. Our practice does a lot of epidurals and 50% of our practice is payors tied to MDC, so the impact on our revenue is more like 30%!

If I were a graduating med student I'd try to pick a specialty factoring in the high likelihood that we're aiming at a system similar to Britain where 75% of the population gets something like the NHS, and 25% are private/cash pay.

If I had it to do over again, it would be derm, psych, or dentistry! I would have seriously loved to be an ortho (in hindsight), but one day they will be on the chopping block too.
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Yeah, I've been reading a bit about it over on the Pain forum. Crazy stuff. Can't imagine how pissed you all must be in private practice. They sure are trying to get you guys to sell.
 
TheWeeIceMan said:
Yeah, I've been reading a bit about it over on the Pain forum. Crazy stuff. Can't imagine how pissed you all must be in private practice. They sure are trying to get you guys to sell.
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you know it's bad when attendings wish they had gone into psych LOL
 
Amazingmuzmo said:
Where is this information listed? As much as I love reading 1300 page documents, could someone point out where these sections are?
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The 1300 pages aren't fluff... these changes are all fairly complex. Unless you are an expert in the area, you basically have to rely on the summaries and articles written by people who are. They do all kinds of strange things where certain codes pay more, others pay less, some get bundled others don't, different settings (hospital/outpt/surg center) all pay different rates etc...
 
metopic said:
The 1300 pages aren't fluff... these changes are all fairly complex. Unless you are an expert in the area, you basically have to rely on the summaries and articles written by people who are. They do all kinds of strange things where certain codes pay more, others pay less, some get bundled others don't, different settings (hospital/outpt/surg center) all pay different rates etc...
Click to expand...

Or you could have just told me to go to page 1285 (found it from another thread) which is what I was asking for instead of talking to me like a child with things I already knew.
 
Amazingmuzmo said:
Or you could have just told me to go to page 1285 (found it from another thread) which is what I was asking for instead of talking to me like a child with things I already knew.
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Another thread? It's in the first line of this OP.
 
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