CMS Publishes Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2020

On Nov. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the CY 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule. According to CMS, overall payments to neurosurgery will not change next year. In the rule, the agency finalized plans to adopt the new American Medical Association (AMA) CPT coding structure for office visit codes and the AMA/Specialty Society RVS Update Committee-recommended values for these evaluation and management (E/M) office/outpatient visit codes. Unfortunately, despite organized medicine’s advocacy efforts, CMS will not adjust the E/M portion of the global surgery codes to reflect the increased values, citing the agency’s continued work to evaluate the current global surgery code values. The AANS and the CNS, along with most of medicine, had pressed CMS to include these increased values in the global surgical codes. Click here for a summary of the provisions of the rule most relevant to neurosurgeons and here for a comprehensive summary.