I've had a request to post some information about the 2008 RVU impact, but I've decided to wait a day or two for the dust to settle about the latest news. Hope you don't mind. In the meantime, let's return to a simpler time...like this year...when the only curve-ball is the Budget Neutrality adjustment. Igor was looking at the soon-to-be-ready benchmarks for 2007 and realized that the average price for PCC customers dropped from 150% of Medicare to 147% of Medicare. Alarm bells! We both agreed that the largest culprit would be the increase in RVU values to E&M codes that outpaced our customers' corresponding price increases. Let's check!
| CPT Code | 2006 AVG RVU | 2007 AVG RVU | 2006 AVG FACF | 2007 AVG FACF | RVU Diff | $$ Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99212 | 1.04 | 1.05 | 151% | 155% | +1% | +3% |
| 99213 | 1.43 | 1.71 | 151% | 133% | +19% | -12% |
| 99214 | 2.3 | 2.61 | 141% | 129% | +13% | -9% |
| 99215 | 3.31 | 3.51 | 141% | 140% | +6% | -1% |
Because I never have enough time to make tables properly, here's a quick explanation. In 2006, the average RVU value for our customers for a 99214 was 2.3 RVUs. In 2007 it was 2.61 (a 13% increase, as noted in column 6). In 2006, the average PCC customer charged 141% of Medicare for a 99214, but that dropped to 129% in 2007 (a 9% drop, as indicated in column 7). In absolute terms, you can see that the customer price for a 99214 went up 4% (the difference between columns 6 and 7), but that wasn't enough to keep pace with the RVU changes. Interesting. At least to us RVU nerds.