Presenters:  David Chan MD, PhD & David Studdert LLB, ScD, MPH

“Accuracy of Time Measures Used to Value Surgical Procedures in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule”

The American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) has been called “the most important health care group you’ve never heard of”.  It plays a central role in determining how much public and private insurers pay physicians for services.  The RUC’s role and performance have been heavily criticized, but subjected to very little empirical evaluation.  In a sample of the most common surgical procedures, we assessed the accuracy of a key ingredient of RUC valuations: procedure duration.  We identify inaccuracies, and find that they have substantial distributional effects on payments to surgeons. On the other hand, we find that revaluations by the RUC tend to partially correct these inaccuracies, and detect no evidence of bias in the RUC’s choices of procedures to review.

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All research in progress seminars are off-the-record unless otherwise noted. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication.