Online Tool Calculates Changes in 2007 Medicare Income

Family physicians likely will want to take advantage of an interactive online tool that the Academy's Practice Support Division has updated to help members calculate changes in their Medicare income based on evaluation and management code payment changes recently published in the CMS final rule.

The E/M Impact Tool (MS Excel file: 2 pages / 27 KB. More about downloading files.) allows users to see payment allowances and calculate revenue changes between 2006 and 2007.

To view and compare payment allowances by year -- 2006 and 2007 -- for some of the codes most often billed by family physicians, click on the "Per Code" tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

To calculate revenue changes per physician, click on the "Per Physician" tab, and then input a figure that represents the weekly volume of a particular code -- 99201 to 99292 -- into the "Utilization Per Week" column highlighted in yellow. Hit your return key, and the tool calculates the 2006 revenue, the 2007 revenue, and the positive or negative change in total revenue for that code. The tool calculates totals for the week and can, with user input, calculate totals for the year.

As noted on the spreadsheet, 2006 revenue is based on 2006 total relative value units, or RVUs, and the conversion factor, with no geographic adjustment. Revenue for 2007 is based on the 2007 conversion factor, with no geographic adjustment, as well as total RVUs, including a 10.1 percent budget neutrality adjustment to work RVUs.

The practice impact tool also is accessible through a link at the bottom of the AAFP's Coding Resources page.