National Study to Document Changes in Clinician Practice Expense

National Study to Document Changes in Physician Practice Expense
*A FYI notice for Oregon Academy members

The Clinician Practice Information Survey is a national survey that is being conducted by the American Medical Association with the goal to better understand the costs faced by today’s clinician practices to better support clinician payment advocacy. The study will serve as an opportunity to communicate accurate financial information to policymakers, including members of Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The PPI survey is supported by 173 health organizations, including the Academy.

The Medicare physician payment schedule, which is used to determine reimbursement rates for RDNs, and maintained by CMS and used by many other payers; current payments are based on outdated data from 2006. As the U.S. economy and health care system have undergone substantial changes since that time, including inflation and the wide-spread adoption of electronic health records and other information technology systems, practice expense payments no longer accurately reflect the relative resources that are typically required to provide clinician services.

How does this survey impact RDNs?

Clinicians include registered dietitian nutritionists. This is an opportunity for you, as providers, to speak up and support payment advocacy for RDN provided services.

Practices and individual RDNs may be randomly selected to participate in this survey. Participants selected will receive a short patient care survey from their practice or from Mathematica.

If you are selected, please participate. Your participation is critical to ensure RDN provided services are reimbursed properly in the future.

Survey details

Practices will be contacted via mail and email. Two types of information will be collected: practice financial information and clinician direct patient care hours.

• Invitations and reminders about the CPI Survey (Financial Information Survey), sent financial experts in the practice, will come from PPISurvey@mathematica-mpr.com.
• The subject line for the PPI Survey invitation email will read, “American Medical Association requests your input on clinician practice expense and patient care hours”.
• Invitations and reminders about the Clinician Hours Survey, distributed to clinicians/providers, will come from PhysicianHoursSurvey@mathematica-mpr.com or from the practice directly.
• The subject line for the Physician Hours Survey invitation email will read, “Please help to update accurate clinician payments”.