By the 1960s the proliferation of physician services after decades of accelerating
innovation required development of a common language to describe medical services
for modern health care.
1
The American Medical Association (AMA) in partnership with medical specialties developed
Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) to specify nomenclature describing physician
procedures and services to facilitate documentation and third-party billing. In 1991
the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) was established to develop a standard
method to advise the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), which sets service payments
for physician services within the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS).
2
The elements of the RBRVS that CMS adopted based on research work carried out by
Hsiao et al
3
at Harvard involved determination of relative value units (RVUs) for work, practice
expense (PE) RVUs, and liability expense.
3
The resulting total RVU is then translated into a dollar value using a conversion
factor determined by the CMS and historically modified frequently by Congress.Abbreviations:
AMA (American Medical Association), CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid), CPT (Current Procedural Terminology), GPCI (geographic practice cost index), PE (practice expense), RBRVS (Resource-Based Relative Value Scale), RUC (Relative Value Scale Update Committee), RVU (relative value unit)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
- American Medical Association History.(Available at:)
- RBRVS overview.(Available at:)
- Estimating physicians’ work for a Resource-based Relative Value Scale.N Engl J Med. 1988; 319: 835-841
- The CPT code process.(Available at:)
- CPT code applications.(Available at:)
- RVS Update Committee.(Available at:)
- 2019 RVS updated process.(Available at:)
- Summary: 2019 Medicare physician fee schedule.(Available at:)
Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
June 17,
2019
Received:
June 9,
2019
Footnotes
DISCLOSURE: All authors disclosed no financial relationships relevant to this publication.
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 by the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
