2013 Physician Fee Schedule impacted by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012

 In response to the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, CMS has published a revision to the RVU file for January 2013.  The Conversion Factor used to calculate payment was shifted from $25.0008 (reported in the original 01/2013 RVU13A file) to $34.023 (in the replacement RVU13AR file).  The conversion factor used in 2012 was $34.0376.

In addition, CMS has made multiple corrections to other variables, including relative value units for many codes. If you would like to investigate the payment differences, here are several tools to help:

Go to the Physician Fee Codebook on line. Look at any code details page. At the top will be the CURRENT information (RVU13AR values).  Scroll down for a history to see 2012 values.

Also in the Physician Fee Codebook, go to the Updates and Changes Report to download a handy excel Difference Report. This shows RVU13A and RVU 13AR compared, with changes highlighted in YELLOW.

Finally, go to the RVU Calculator to enter a set of codes. Toggle the date option to see how reimbursement has changed.