This PowerPoint provides the background on the RUC that Brian Klepper presented at the National Medical Home Summit in Philadelphia in February 2012. It tries to deliver a concise explanation of the structural issues involved.
Specialist-PCP Hourly Earnings Under MFS
Read This First! Why Did We Develop This Site?
This site has been developed - see here for our backgrounds - to help primary care physicians and other interested individuals obtain verifiable background from reputable sources on:
- The evolution and structure of the US' medical payment system.
- How it came to devalue primary care and favor specialty services.
- How that has translated to lower quality care at far greater expense in the US.
We believe the overwhelming majority of American primary care physicians are deeply frustrated with the differences in how primary and specialty care are valued by the current system, and the havoc that system has wrought throughout health care and the nation.
The first step to remedying this situation is for the primary care medical societies to visibly and loudly withdraw from participation in the RUC, de-legitimizing the process.
That said, this effort is most decidedly NOT primarily about getting primary care physicians more money, but bringing our health system back into homeostasis.
We hope that you will first familiarize yourself with the information available here, and then use one of the letters supplied to urge your primary care society to leave the RUC.
Together, perhaps we can facilitate a process to replace the RUC with a more balanced, independent advisory panel to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Then the next step would be to urge replacement of the current, highly jiggered reimbursement methodology, the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS), with another approach that is more modern, enlightened and focused on value. We believe that a core principle of a revised payment system is payment parity for management of complexity.
This is likely to be a process that takes time, so we'll update this site daily to reflect the latest information. Please visit often to stay in touch. And if you think this is important and worthwhile, please pass this site along to your colleagues.
Please feel free to contact Paul Fischer MD or Brian Klepper, PhD if you have any questions or concerns.
Want to help. Click here to get in touch.
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Background
- Why Aren’t Primary Care Physicians More Ticked off about the RUC? An Interview with Brian Klepper
- The RUC, Health Care Finance’s Star Chamber, Remains Untouchable
- US Senate Subcommittee Asks What the RUC Is About
- The Augusta Primary Care Physicians Lose Their Appeal
- The Most Powerful Health Care Group You’ve Never Heard Of
- Will Anyone Listen When Former CMS Chiefs Call For More Objective Physician Payment?
- An Overview of the RUC and the Problems It Represents
- The RUC’s Hollow Victory
- The RUC’s Empty Gesture
- Adding Seats: The RUC’s Sleight of Hand
- Trusting Government: A Tale of Two Advisory Groups
- Why Primary Care Doctors Sued CMS over Its Reliance on the AMA’s RUC – and Why the RUC Should Be Changed or Replaced
- Tracking the RUC Trial
- Residents and Medical Students Should Support Efforts to Revalue Cognitive Services
- Another Modest Proposal*: Paying for Physician Training
- The Need for a Level Playing Field for Physician Pay
- Why Medical Specialists Should Want to End the Reign of the RUC
- A Legal Challenge to CMS’ Reliance on the RUC
- Rethinking the Value of Medical Services
- The AAFP’s Bold Valuation Initiative
Blogroll
Replace the RUC! · A National Educational Effort To Replace The Processes Most Responsible for the Health Care Cost Crisis
