The impact of healthcare reform on Cardiology reimbursements?

[Tomodachi123]

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Tried to search this info in Cardiology threads but couldn't find any relevant information.

Could some of you Cardiology Attendings and Residents shed some light on the impact of healthcare reform on medicare reimbursements in non-interventional Cardiology? Thank you.

 

[KRichards62]

Tried to search this info in Cardiology threads but couldn't find any relevant information.

Could some of you Cardiology Attendings and Residents shed some light on the impact of healthcare reform on medicare reimbursements in non-interventional Cardiology? Thank you.

I've heard echo and nuclear are taking about a 20% reduction in reimbursement rates. Some say this defeats the purpose of intended reform (i.e. decrease unnecessary testing) as some practice models will just increase the number of tests they do by 20% to cover the bottom line. My understanding is that interventional is taking the biggest hit, particularly for reimbursement of diagnostic caths.

I'd welcome some more informed feedback, everything I know is based on hear-say.

 

[josephf1]

you can see all the current and many proposed reimbursements on ASNC website
shocking actually how little the physician fees are for these procedures

 

[Myostatin]

Cardiology is a victim of its own pro-activeness. Unlike the vast majority of specialties we do clinical studies to actually answer clinical questions. Yet we're continually on the chopping block for cuts in reimbursement. PCI in patients with stable symptomatic coronary disease is continually under fire though its been shown time and time again that there is symptomatic benefit. On the other hand, reimbursements for kyphoplasty, most of the anesthesia pain management procedures, and spine surgery are obscenely high. Yet there's basically zero data to support even modest symptomatic benefit of most of these interventions - but the reimbursement continues on and on and even (gasp) keeps pace with inflation. When's the last time you've seen a patient symptomatically improve after a spinal fusion? It is mindblowing to me how these reimbursement decisions get made.