Medicare Proposes Calendar 2003 Pay Rate

At the same time that the House was trying to improvephysician pay, the "Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services" (CMS)announced that barring a change in the Medicare statute, the update in calendar2003 will again be negative. 

The update is a percentage by which relative value scale payments for eachCPT code are increased or decreased. However, the CMS said it was proposing tochange the way it calculates the Medical Economic Index (MEI), a measure ofinflation in physician practice costs and general wages. 

The change would result in a boost in the MEI from 2.3% to 3.0%. However, theupdate as a whole would be a negative 4.4% in 2003. 

Without the proposed change to the MEI, CMS estimates that physician rateswould be reduced by 5.1% for 2003. The more significant changes to the Medicarefee calculation in the House bill would change that reduction into an increase.