"There's nothing specific on medical imaging in our report this year," said commission Executive Director Jim Mathews, PhD, in a teleconference.
Additionally, the commission is not recommending any payment updates to the physician fee schedule for 2023, it said.
Overall, Medicare payments per beneficiary decreased in 2020 by 10.6%, "due to care being postponed or forgone during the [COVID-19] public health emergency," the report authors noted. In particular, imaging services fell by 11.4%; by modality, the decrease varied.
| Allowed charges per fee-for-service beneficiary for physician fee schedule services, 2019-2020 |
| Service type |
Change in units of service per beneficiary |
Change in payments per beneficiary |
| Imaging (overall) |
-13.3% |
-11.4% |
| X-ray |
-14.4% |
-13.2% |
| Ultrasound |
-14% |
-13% |
| CT |
-9.3% |
-8.2% |
| Nuclear medicine |
-15% |
-6.8% |
| MRI |
-13.4% |
-13.5% |
This year's report was complicated by COVID-19, the commission noted.
"While we have considered the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on our payment adequacy indicators, we continue to make recommendations aimed at finding ways to provide high-quality care for Medicare beneficiaries while giving providers incentives to constrain their cost growth and thus help control program spending," it wrote.
Copyright © 2022 AuntMinnie.com
