title: Results and impacts of the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale.
abstract: On January 1, 1992, the Health Care Financing Administration implemented the 1989 legislation reforming the Medicare payment system for physicians' services. The cornerstone of the new payment reform is the Medicare Fee Schedule (MFS), which is based on the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS). In this article, the major findings of the RBRVS study and its impacts on physician payment are summarized. The authors report the impacts of a RBRVS-based fee schedule on Medicare fees and physicians' income if it were fully implemented, assuming budget neutrality and absence of volume changes in services. Under this scenario, fees for evaluation and management services increase by 15% to 45%, while fees for invasive services and diagnostic tests decrease by 20% to 30%. These changes increase the Medicare income of family practitioners by more than 30% while decreasing the income of most surgical specialties by 10% to 20%.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: W C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Hsiao
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.forename: E R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Dunn
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Causino
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: McCabe
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rodriguez
mesh_terms: D004470:Economics, Medical; D005245:Fee Schedules / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016345:Medicare Part B / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D008511:Medicine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015397:Program Evaluation; D015895:Relative Value Scales; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013038:Specialization; D014481:United States; D016526:Workload / Q000145:classification / Q000191:economics