2006 proposed fee schedule - American Society of Clinical Oncology

Both physical/occupational therapy and independent
laboratory show significant positive impacts in the last
327
column of 6.0 and 28.0 percent, respectively. For therapy
services, we had previously applied an adjustment that
assigned all therapy services the therapy practice expense
per hour, even when billed by specialties with higher costs.
Under the top-down methodology, this adjustment was applied
to both direct and indirect costs. However, under our
proposed methodology, the practice expense per hour data
would not be used to calculate direct expenses and this
would eliminate the adjustment for direct practice expense
costs.
The total CPEP/RUC dollars for supplies and equipment
for the services performed by independent laboratories are
significantly higher than the aggregate dollars shown by the
recent supplementary survey for these cost pools.
Therefore, under the current top-down methodology, the
CPEP/RUC dollars are scaled down to equal the survey
dollars, and the practice expense RVUs are consequently
reduced. Under our proposed methodology, the direct costs
would no longer be scaled, resulting in higher practice
expense RVUs for these services. (This also results in a
positive 5.2 percent impact for pathologists, who also
perform these services.) Although, as discussed above, we
generally believe the refined CPEP/RUC data to be more