Boca Raton, FL – The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) recently released a new brief on 2022 Medicare Fee Schedules and Workers Compensation.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) updates its reimbursement rules and rates for medical services each year. This article will discuss and compare the most relevant changes in its 2021 and 2022 updates and their potential impact on workers compensation (WC) medical costs.
NCCI monitors changes in CMS reimbursement rules and rates that may impact WC medical costs. In the published article titled, 2021 CMS Fee Schedules and Workers Compensation, NCCI highlighted some of the most impactful changes that took place in the 2021 update. The Producer Price Index for health care services already reflected those 2021 changes to CMS physician reimbursement rates in reported medical price inflation. The Producer Price Index for health care services increased by 3% in 2021, significantly influenced by physician services, which grew 4.5%.1 The 2021 NCCI article also provided an overview of how WC fee schedules operate, providing a source of information regarding Relative Value Units (RVUs) and CMS’ formula for calculating payment rates.
This 2022 article focuses on comparing the 2021 and 2022 CMS updates to reimbursement rules and rates and provides insight on some early effects of the 2021 changes on WC medical costs based on data reported to NCCI through its Medical Data Call (MDC) for the first three quarters of 2021. This article discusses CMS fee schedule changes for three categories of medical services:
- Physician
- Facilities
- Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies
Read the free brief: NCCI: Medicare Fee Schedules and Workers’ Compensation in 2022
Source: NCCI