I Don't Mind Waiting on a Woman, but 2.5 months is enough

So this is the first blog I have written since early May and the reason is simple Taryn wanted to blog about the house, the summer and our new puppy Tess. Well she hasn't because she's busy with the house, the summer travels and our new puppy Tess. So instead of stealing her thunder I would just like to take this time writing about something very near and dear to me. Relative Value Units or (RVUs)

Now for those of you who don't know what RVUs are let me explain. They are these ridiculously complicated value that dozens of Harvard minds have come up with that basically decide how much Physicians should be paid for each procedure or practice that they preform. For instance a 30 minute first patient visit has an RVU of 2.2 and a lumbar injection has one of 8.5. Interesting enough these values get multiplied by what is called a Conversion Factor that establishes how much each RVU pays. For instance this year the conversion factor is 36.06 so your patient visit you get reimbursed just around $80. While your lumbar injection gets paid about $300 or so. Now I need to add this is what the government pays you not a private insurance agent. That's too complicated and has nothing to do with my point so I will stop. Funny how you don't learn anything about these things until your LAST YEAR OF RESIDENCY, even though they are the most important factor in figuring out how much you get paid. Anyway I write my post to say this. We all hear that Medicare/Medicaid spending is out of control and is costing tax payers millions of dollars so it needs to be fixed.

A little known secret is that congress doesn't control these reimbursement rates they just pass legislation to create standards and decide what kind of people are eligible. But anyway our beautiful government in the form of the CMS or Center for Medicare Services has decided the best way to reduce our Medicare services is to decrease reimbursement rates by reducing the conversion factor 21%. That's right 21% and that's doesn't just effect physician's it effects nurses, the staff and even patients. For instance that lumbar puncture instead of receiving $300 they will receive $just under $250. Well new flash that procedure cost $250 so do you think physicians will be providing that procedure to those that can just pay the minimum rate? I think if they want their office manager to fire them they will. So what does this mean to people who the government is trying to help get care? In essence they are going to be denied care b/c a practice or hospital cannot afford to perform the procedure.

It's not just about physician's salaries decreasing or hospital guruys making 600 grand instead of a million, it's about people's healthcare treatment getting worse. Now I'm against Obama's plan of hiking up taxes to help pay for the spending as much as the next conservative, but people that plan does not have a direct effect of cutting the reimbursement rates.

I leave you with this illustration. This summer I'm working at a Pain Center (where people go to get treated for chronic pain, neat stuff Drs. make anywhere from $300 grand to $800 grand). They are the only pain center within a 300 mile radius that accepts Medicare patients and so they have a lot of low reimbursement rates and because of this they are not doing so well. With the continual cuts in reimbursement they are looking at a loss that triples their current one in 3 years. AKA they will go out of business and therefore patients that need chronic pain treatment won't be seen. So in effect these cuts that the government is making to help its citizens are actually going to be denying them treatment.

Sounds like were headed in the right direction.

Until next time