In the next few weeks, you may be selected to participate in an AMA/Specialty Society RVS Update Committee (RUC) survey for physician office visits (99202-99205, 99211-99215) and a new prolonged services code (99XXX). As you may know, the components of the Medicare Physician Payment Schedule are physician work, practice expense and professional liability insurance. This survey will help the ACR, in concert with the RUC, recommend accurate relative values for physician work and direct practice expense to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The CPT guidelines and descriptors to report office visit codes will undergo extensive revision for implementation in 2021. Code level selection will either be based solely on medical decision making or total time on the date of the visit. The extent of history and physical examination will no longer be an element in the code level selection of office visits. If you receive this important survey, please be sure to read the new CPT guidelines and code descriptors in detail before taking the survey. A link to the survey, with the new guidelines for office visits, will be provided in an email in the next few days for you to participate.
Note: The second section of this survey is intended to capture practice expense in the physician office. When you get to the practice expense section of this survey, be prepared to work with your clinical staff and practice manager to capture such information as nurse time spent related to each code level of the office visit and the typical medical supplies and equipment used in the visit.
Assigning an appropriate value to these codes is an important step toward recognition of and reimbursement for these important services. There are 10 separate surveys for each code. We realize completing these surveys is a significant commitment of time and energy and want you to know how critical this is to valuing the codes appropriately. Because we are under a tight timeline, we will need your completed survey by Monday, March 18.
For more information on the RUC survey process, watch the following YouTube video: Understanding the RUC Survey Instrument.
This survey is very important to the ACR and the medical profession. To ensure data integrity, we ask that you not collaborate with any other physician on your responses to the physician work portion of this survey. Contact Antanya Chung at [email protected] or 404-633-3777 x818 with questions or requests for further explanation.
