How the AMA influences healthcare pricing

The Relative Value Update Committee (RUC) is an American Medical Association committee that makes recommendations of what medical procedures are worth.

The radio show Marketplace looks at how the secretive committee influences health-care pricing. While you're at it, read Pauline Chen's argument that the RUC is a major factor contributing to a shortage of primary care physicians. And the AMA has a document spelling out the duties of the RUC (48 KB PDF).

There are a few points worth noting:

• The RUC has exhaustive hearings to determine the relative value of  medical procedures - not dollar amounts.

• These values are assigned to CPT codes.

• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) accepts 90 percent of the RUC's recommendations of the relative value of procedure.

So what will be the effect of U.S. hospitals using ICD-10-PCS instead of CPT?