ARTICLE
The recently released proposed rule for 2020 Medicare payment rates 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule establishes a conversion factor of $36.09, up $0.05 from 2019, for an overall increase of 0.14%. The proposed rule aims to give clinicians’ more time with their patients by scrapping unnecessary measures and shrinking their paperwork burden, explained Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), “Clinicians are drowning in paperwork and reporting requirements caused by cumbersome government rules and regulations. These administrative costs add to the total cost of delivering healthcare,” she said, noting that practices often hire additional staff to keep up with requirements. “Consistent with our goals of burden reduction, we are proposing to align our E/M coding with changes laid out by the CPT Editorial Panel for office/outpatient E/M visits," said an updated CMS fact sheet. "The CPT coding changes retain 5 levels of coding for established patients, reduce the number of levels to 4 for office/outpatient E/M visits for new patients, and revise the code definitions. The CPT changes also revise the times and medical decision making process for all of the codes, and requires performance of history and exam only as medically appropriate. The CPT code changes also allow clinicians to choose the E/M visit level based on either medical decision making or time,” according to the CMS. The American Medical Association (AMA) said it was pleased to see the changes CMS proposed around documenting and coding for E/M services. AMA President Patrice Harris, MD, noted in a press release that the AMA and other medical groups helped CMS develop the new proposal. “The proposed changes to documenting and coding for office visits will streamline reporting requirements, reduce note bloat, improve workflow, and contribute to a better environment for health care professionals and their Medicare patients," Harris said. Source: https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/medicare/81316