2006 proposed fee schedule - American Society of Clinical Oncology

psychology to the nonsurgical risk factor for psychiatry
(risk factor of 1.11). We crosswalked occupational therapy
to occupational medicine (risk factor of 1.11). The PLI
Workgroup recommends crosswalking these professions to
allergy and immunology, with a risk factor of 1.00 (although
the Workgroup suggests the actual risk factor for these
professions may be below the risk factor for allergy and
immunology and encourages the collection of malpractice
premium data for these professions).
The Workgroup also believes that opticians and
optometrists should be assigned this risk factor of 1.0, as
opposed to being crosswalked to ophthalmology (nonsurgical
risk factor of 1.24, surgical risk factor of 2.31). The
Workgroup further suggests that it would be more appropriate
to assign the risk factor of 1.0 to the chiropractic and
physical therapy specialties rather than their current
crosswalk to physical medicine and rehabilitation
(nonsurgical and surgical risk factors of 1.26). The
Workgroup felt that these specialties will not incur PLI
premiums in excess of the current base premiums associated a
risk factor of 1.0.
We examined the risk factors assigned to these
professions, and agree that the PLI associated with them
should reflect the lowest physician specialty risk factor
(absent actual premium data for these professions).
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