Anesthesia Billing and Collections: 2012 Medicare Conversion Factors
Author : Doc Clemens
2012 Medicare Conversion Factors
Recent legislative action has provided for a zero percent update to the Medicare conversion factor for services provided from January 1 through February 29, 2012. The final rule on the Medicare Fee Schedule indicated that there would be an increase in the conversion factor for budget neutrality and this change will also be effective January 1, 2012. The budget neutrality increase is due to CMS adoption of the RVS Update Committee recommendations for misvalued codes. The anesthesia conversion factor also increased due to the on-going transition to new data to determine practice expense values. As you may recall, data from the Physician Practice Information Survey (PPIS) is being transitioned into the fee schedule over a four year period.
The 2011 unadjusted Anesthesia conversion factor was $21.0515. The January – February 2012 Anesthesia conversion factor will be $21.4089 (an increase of 1.67%).
The 2011 RBRVS conversion factor was $33.9764. The January to February 2012 RBRVS conversion factor will be $34.0376 (an increase of 0.18%).