The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has published an article in MLN Matters explaining the new Medicare Part B payment codes for physicians and others performing patient evaluation and management consultations on or after Jan. 1, 2010.
In the calendar year 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) final rule with comment period (CMS-1413-FC), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services eliminated the use of all consultation codes (inpatient and office/outpatient codes) for various places of service except for telehealth consultation G-codes.
The change will not increase or decrease Medicare payments. In place of the consultation codes, CMS increased the work relative value units (RVUs) for new and established office visits, increased the work RVUs for initial hospital and initial nursing facility visits, and incorporated the increased use of these visits into the practice expense (PE) and malpractice calculations.
CMS also increased the incremental work RVUs for the E/M codes that are built into the 10-day and 90-day global surgical codes.
You can download the PDF version of the MLN Matters article here.