Implementing a RB-RVS Fee Schedule for Physician Services

An Assessment of Policy Options for the California Workers' Compensation Program

Barbara O. Wynn, Harry H. Liu, Andrew W. Mulcahy, Edward N. Okeke, Neema Iyer, Lawrence S. Painter

Published Jul 26, 2013

The study uses 2011 medical data to examine the impact of implementing a resource-based relative value scale to pay for physician services under the California worker's compensation system. Current allowances under the Official Medical Fee Schedule are approximately 116 percent of Medicare allowed amounts and, by law, will transition to 120 percent of Medicare over four years. Using Medicare policies to establish the fee schedule amounts, aggregate allowances are estimated to decrease for four types of service by the end of the transition in 2017: anesthesia (-16.5 percent), surgery (-19.9 percent), radiology (-16.5 percent) and pathology (-29.0 percent). Aggregate allowances for evaluation and management visits and for medicine are estimated to increase by 39.5 percent and 17.3 percent, respectively. In the aggregate across all services, allowances are projected to increase 11.9 percent.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Superseded
  • Year: 2013
  • Pages: 196
  • Document Number: WR-993-1-DIR

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Wynn, Barbara O., Harry H. Liu, Andrew W. Mulcahy, Edward N. Okeke, Neema Iyer, and Lawrence S. Painter, Implementing a RB-RVS Fee Schedule for Physician Services: An Assessment of Policy Options for the California Workers' Compensation Program. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2013. https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR993-1.html.
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The research described in this report was prepared for the California Department of Industrial Relations and conducted under the umbrella of the RAND Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace.

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