The amendment, introduced by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) on Dec. 11, would require CMS to keep the codes for one year.
Eliminating the codes, which recognize specialists’ consultative services for patients, and replacing them with existing inpatient and outpatient CPT codes, would reduce income of orthopedic surgeons from consultations by 20 percent, according to an analysis by orthopedic coding consultant LuAnn Jenkins in Lapeer, Mich.
However, the American Academy of Family Physicians issued a release “strongly” opposing the Specter amendment, according to a report by Physicians News Digest. The AAFP said money saved from eliminating the consultation codes would be shifted to reimbursements for all evaluation and management codes, resulting in a 6 percent increase in E&M reimbursements for all physicians.
But the AMA and specialty groups warned that the decline in Medicare reimbursements would force many specialists to cut back on Medicare patients or exit Medicare altogether. In a survey of members of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, one of the groups supporting the amendment, four out of five said they would drastically reduce or eliminate Medicare patients if the codes were removed.
Other groups supporting the Specter amendment include the American Academy of Neurology, American College of Cardiology, American Gastroenterological Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Urological Association, Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations and the American Medical Group Association.
The same physician groups outlined their opposition to eliminating the codes in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “Consultations, which typically occur when one physician requests an expert opinion or advice from another physician about a particular patient’s medical condition or treatment, are an established and critical part of medical practice,” the groups wrote.
Read the AMA and specialty groups’ release on consultation codes.
Read Physicians News Digest’s report on consultation codes.
Read the AMA specialty groups’ letter to Sen. Reid on consultation codes.
