"Transparency" Will Not Fix Medicare Physician Fees

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report criticizing the way the federal government sets physicians’ fees in Medicare. It concludes that “Better Data and Greater Transparency Could Improve Accuracy.”

I doubt it. Note the mind-numbing detail of this process: The government delegates this authority to a group of physicians who comprise the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC). The government “reviewed 1,278 RUC work relative value recommendations for about 1,200 unique (new and existing) services)” in the last four years.

Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.