ASA Joins With Other Specialties to Support CMS Proposal to Update Practice Expense Values
Chicago —
(August 6, 2009)
Earlier this year ASA members were selected to participate in the Physician Practice Information Survey. We appreciate those members who took part in this effort.
The results of the survey provide CMS with more accurate and up-to-date information to use when calculating Practice Expense payments.
The data that CMS currently uses to calculate the per hour costs for anesthesiology and pain medicine are more than ten years old. In addition, the payments for practice expenses (PE) for anesthesia and pain as well as the majority of other specialties were significantly distorted over the last several years when supplemental PE data was submitted by a small minority of specialties. Use of updated data will address this imbalance.
A small number of specialties have raised arguments against use of this new data. The following multi-specialty letter counters those arguments and urges implementation for services provided on/after January 1, 2010.
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS
Anesthesiologists: Physicians providing the Lifeline of Modern Medicine TM. Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists is an educational, research and scientific association with more than 50,000 members organized to raise and maintain the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology and improve the care of the patient.
For more information on the field of anesthesiology, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists website at www.asahq.org.
For patient information, visit
LifeLineToModernMedicine.com
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