Brian Klepper
Posted 5/18/12 on The Health Affairs Blog
Copyright 2012 by Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.
On May 9th, William Nickerson, Senior Judge in the Southern Maryland Federal District Court, issued a 15 page ruling against the six Augusta, GA primary care physician plaintiffs who challenged HHS’ and CMS’ longstanding relationship with the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC). The opinion did not weigh the substance of the case, but instead focused on a procedural provision in which Congress bars the judicial system from considering how the relative value units (RVUs) of medical services are determined. Judge Nickerson wrote:
Accepting as true that RUC plays a major role in the formation of the PFS [Physician Fee Schedule] and also accepting as true that this role unfairly skews the PFS toward certain medical professions and procedures, the Court, nonetheless, finds that Congress has precluded courts from reviewing, not only the final relative values and RVUs, but also the method by which those values and units are generated.
Source: Medscape Physician Lifestyle Report 2012, http://www.medscape.com/sites/public/lifestyle/2012
At a recent dinner party my husband and I joined two other couples in a lively discussion on the frustrations of American health care. We rounded up the usual suspects – cost, quality, access, politics, and broken systems. At some point the conversation took a subtle turn and we began to talk about the doctor-patient relationship.
