RUC Is the Wave of the Future for American Medicine
The American Medical Association is proud to convene the Relative Value Scale Update Committee, or RUC, a group of volunteer physicians who provide expertise to Medicare, saving taxpayers millions ("Secrets of the System: Physician Panel Prescribes the Fees Paid by Medicare," page one, Oct. 27). More than 300 attendees participated in the last RUC meeting, and information is publicly available.</br></br>The RUC physicians work hard to forge consensus under the strict confines of Medicare's budgetary constraints where increases for one service result in across-the-board decreases for all services. This happened in 2007 when payments for the most common primary-care service were increased. The RUC is also taking the lead in identifying overvalued services, a task the government was unable to do on its own.</br></br>While the RUC doesn't set fees and has nothing to do with the size of the Medicare payment pie, the reality is that spending on physician services rose only 2.7% in 2008, and other areas of Medicare spending are rising much faster than physician spending. In fact, inflation-adjusted physician payment fell 25% between 1996 and 2006.</br></br>Without congressional action, Medicare will cut all physician payments about 30% by Jan. 1. Congress needs to act on Medicare payment reform before Dec. 1.</br></br>Cecil B. Wilson, M.D.