Just Why Do We Adjust Medicare Physician Fees for Geographic Practice Cost Differences?
نویسنده
چکیده
Chairman Johnson and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the geographic practice costs adjustment in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. My name is Stephen Zuckerman and I am a Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan research institute located in Washington, D.C. Along with Gregory Pope at the Center for Health Economics Research in Waltham, MA and W. Pete Welch, a former colleague of mine at the Urban Institute, I co-directed the development of the practice cost adjusters that were adopted for use in the Fee Schedule in 1992. I also worked on the first revision of the adjusters in 1995. The conceptual basis for the geographic cost adjusters has not changed in the intervening years.
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