"Relative value unit" from_date:2012

Rebuilding the Relative Value Unit-Based Physician Payment System. This Viewpoint explores the use of relative value units assigned by the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale in US physician payment systems and the need to rebuild this scale to reflect changes in modern clinical practice.

Predicting Peak Productivity in Urologic Medicare Practice via Work-Relative Value Units. To explore factors associated with productivity in urologic practice. Work-relative value units (wRVUs), the basis for Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and private payer reimbursements, commonly serve to estimate physician productivity. Limited data describes which practice factors predict

Impact of 2023 Ventral Hernia Repair CPT Code Changes on Work Relative Value Units in a Tertiary Hernia Referral Center. CPT codes for ventral hernia repair (VHR) changed in January 2023 to address the heterogeneity of procedures with a concomitant shift from a 90-day to a 0-day global period. This study reviews a tertiary referral center's experience with hernia coding comparing the work relative value units (wRVUs) generated for ventral hernia repair pre-2023 compared to post-2023. CPT codes were analyzed for patients undergoing open or laparoscopic VHR before updates to the CPT hernia codes (January 2022-September 2022) and following CPT change (January 2023-September 2023). Work RVU values were assigned based on nationally published values. CPT codes in 2022, CPT codes in 2023, 8

Relative-Value Units in Arthroplasty: Past, Present, and Future. Relative value units (RVUs) were first introduced by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989 to standardize physician compensation based on the effort, skill, and resources required for medical services. This methodology replaced the "usual, customary, and reasonable" standard, which reduced variability in payments across

Anesthesia Clinical Workload Estimated From Electronic Health Record Documentation vs Billed Relative Value Units. Accurate measurements of clinical workload are needed to inform health care policy. Existing methods for measuring clinical workload rely on surveys or time-motion studies, which are labor-intensive to collect and subject to biases. To compare anesthesia clinical workload estimated from electronic health record (EHR) audit log data vs billed relative value units. This cross-sectional study of anesthetic encounters occurring between August 26, 2019, and February 9, 2020, used data from 8 academic hospitals, community hospitals, and surgical centers across Missouri and Illinois. Clinicians who provided anesthetic services for at least 1 surgical encounter were included. Data were

Association of Race and Ethnicity With Triage Emergency Severity Index Scores and Total Visit Work Relative Value Units for Emergency Department Patients. This cross-sectional study evaluates the association of race and ethnicity with triage Emergency Severity Index scores and total work relative value units for emergency department (ED) patients.

Variation in Operative Time and Work Relative Value Units in Gynecologic Surgery. Variability exists in the patient population characteristics, operative time, and relative value units generated by gynecologic surgical subspecialists.

A Retrospective Review of Relative Value Units in Revision Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Dichotomy Between Surgical Complexity and Reimbursement. Revision total knee arthroplasties (TKA) are costly, time-intensive, and technically demanding procedures. There are concerns regarding the valuation of Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes and the assigned relative value units (RVU) as a potential

Comparison of Work Relative Value Units for Outpatient Pediatric and Adult Dermatology Encounters. Dermatologists with specialty training in pediatric dermatology are scarce, which can mean extended wait times and reduced access to care for patients. Lower compensation for pediatric dermatology visits compared with adult visits may affect physician career choice and contribute to workforce shortages. To evaluate differences in work relative value units (wRVUs) generated by pediatric and adult outpatient dermatology encounters. This cross-sectional study used data from outpatient dermatology encounters at a single-site academic center in Atlanta, Georgia, from September 1, 2016, to March 31, 2020. Encounters with patients younger than 18 years were classified as pediatric, and encounters

Is Our Effort Appropriately Valued? An Analysis of Work Relative Value Units in Immediate Breast Reconstruction. The work relative value units system was developed as a quantifier of physician labor, technical skill, and training time required to complete surgical procedures. Thus, more complex surgical procedures that require greater technical skills and are more time consuming should yield a greater compensation. It is known that prosthetic breast reconstruction reimburses more per hour than autologous breast reconstruction. However, there are limited data comparing work relative value units and operative times in breast reconstruction procedures. Therefore, this study aims to compare mean operative times and work relative value units per minute across three different modalities of breast

Relative value units do not adequately account for operative time in pediatric urology. Relative value units (RVUs) are the measure of value used in United States Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. The Relative Update Committee (RUC) determines physician work RVU (wRVUs) based on operative time, technical skill and effort, mental effort and judgment, and stress. The primary aim of this study

Reimbursement for Hip Fractures: The Impact of Varied Current Procedural Terminology Coding Using Relative Value Units. Many orthopedic practices routinely code hip fracture hemiarthroplasty as Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) 27125 even though 27236 is the correct CPT code. Our objective is to determine the financial impact this simple mistake has on surgeon reimbursement. Our data comprised cases assigned International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision code S72.001A through S72.035A and CPT code 27125 or 27236 within the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program 2016-2017 database. Relative value units (RVUs) per CPT code and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that RVU conversion factor of $36.0896 per 1 RVU was used

Assessment of the Contribution of the Work Relative Value Unit Scale to Differences in Physician Compensation Across Medical and Surgical Specialties. The work relative value units (wRVUs) for a physician service can be conceptualized as the amount of time spent by the physician multiplied by a compensation rate (wRVUs/min). Disproportionately high compensation rates assigned to procedures have

Relative Value Units do Not Adequately Account for Operative Time of Urological Surgery. Physician work relative value units are determined based on operative time, technical skill, mental effort and stress. In theory, work relative value units should account for the operative time involved in a procedure, resulting in similar work relative value units per unit time for short and long procedures . We assessed whether operative time is adequately accounted for by the current work relative value units assignments. The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database was reviewed from 2015 to 2017. The 50 most frequently coded urology CPT codes were included in the study. The primary variable was work relative value units per hour of operative time (work

Correlation of Relative Value Units With Surgical Complexity and Physician Workload in Urology. To define the relationship between urology relative value units (RVUs) and measures of surgical complexity and physician workload. Secondary objectives include: (1) identifying procedures with outlying RVU values for their measures of surgical complexity and workload; and (2) calculating projected RVU

Association of Work Measures and Specialty With Assigned Work Relative Value Units Among Surgeons. The primary data sources used to generate and update work relative value units (RVUs) are surveys of small groups of specialists who are asked to estimate the time and intensity needed to perform surgical procedures. Because these surveys are conducted by specialty societies and rely on subjective

An Academic Relative Value Unit System for Incentivizing the Academic Productivity of Surgery Faculty Members. The objective of this study was to evaluate a new academic relative-value unit (aRVU) scoring system linked to faculty compensation and analyze its association with overall departmental academic productivity. Faculty are often not incentivized or financially compensated for educational

Components of responsibility in estimating relative value units: How do dentists value their work? Responsibility weights can translate services into a common scale of work effort (relative value units). The aims were to describe the responsibility weights for main areas of dental services and assess associations of ratings of the importance of the components of responsibility

What provides a better value for your time? the use of relative value units to compare posterior segmental instrumentation of vertebral segments. Relative value units (RVUs) are a compensation model based on the effort required to provide a procedure or service to a patient. Thus, procedures that are more complex and require greater technical skill and aftercare, such as multilevel spine surgery

Update on Relative Value Units and the Cognitive Physician Visit