Working toward a more rational pattern of fees.
Following its congressional mandate to reform physician payment, the Physician Payment Review Commission has been examining the concept of a fee schedule. The commission, which operates almost entirely in public, has extensive contact with physician groups and beneficiary organizations, and provides extensive opportunities for formal testimony at public meetings and for frequent informal interactions at the staff level. By sending various organizations a draft outline of issues it hopes to take up in its next report to Congress, it is soliciting suggestions from them long before any decisions are made. Such issues as geographic variation in payment, the ways in which CPT codes are used, a relative-value scale, and the increasing volume of services are being subjected to intense scrutiny, and the commission is drawing conclusions.
D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D005245:Fee Schedules; D007357:Insurance, Physician Services / Q000639:trends*; D006278:Medicare / Q000639:trends*; D011907:Rate Setting and Review; D014481:United States