Medicare updates the physician fee schedule conversion factor while…

Question

Medicare updates the physician fee schedule conversion factor while RVU assignments for a CPT remain unchanged. What is the financial impact?

Accepted Answer

Payment for RVU-priced services changes even though the CPT’s RVU values themselves did not change, because the conversion factor scales RVUs into dollars. — Think of RVUs as the recipe quantities and the conversion factor as the price per unit. Congress or CMS can change the price tag without rewriting the recipe—so payment moves even when the CPT’s RVUs sit still. Watch CF updates; they hit across RVU-priced services.

Answer

Only malpractice RVUs change; work and practice-expense RVUs and payment stay fixed forever.

Answer

Payment is unaffected because conversion factors never multiply RVUs.

Answer

ICD-10-CM codes must be renumbered whenever the conversion factor changes.

Medicare updates the physician fee schedule conversion factor while RVU assignments for a CPT remain unchanged. What is the financial impact?

Short Explanation

Full Explanation