The Relative Value Update Committee (RUC) is responsible for valuing physician work for new and revised CPT® codes. If you are interested in helping with the RUC surveys, please contact Angela Choe at (800)227-5463, extension 4556 or angelac@acr.org.
Background
With the institution in 1992 of resource-based reimbursement for physician work, this committee was formed so that organized medicine would have a multispecialty group that could assess the relative physician work of the various CPT codes. Unlike the CPT Editorial Panel, which has no designated seats for specific specialties, the RUC does have seats for the major specialty organizations, including the ACR. James Borgstede, M.D., is the ACR member representative on the panel and Bibb Allen, Jr., MD is the ACR RUC Advisor. Also, unlike the CPT Editorial Panel, which makes the final decisions on the content of CPT-4, the RUC is an advisory body to CMS, where the final decision on values for each of the codes is made.
Like the Editorial Panel, the RUC also has an advisory committee, with members from all organizations that have a seat in the House of Delegates, including the ACR and other radiological organizations. When the Editorial Panel approves a new or revised code, all specialty societies can recommend a value for the code or comment on recommendations by others. The recommendations are developed using a formal survey process that compares the new or revised code to existing code values. Members of the ACR may be requested to participate in these surveys; if so, it is critical that the surveys be completed and returned or forwarded to a colleague who may have more knowledge about the procedure being valued. The credibility of the recommended value is highly dependent on the quality of the survey.
The Medicare Fee Schedule relative value unit for any given code is divided into three components: physician work, practice expense and malpractice cost. Congress has mandated that the practice expense component be converted from the old charge-based values to resource-based values similar to the changes made for the physician work component. The implementation of this change began Jan. 1, 1999. The RUC evaluates and recommends values for this component of the fee schedule as well and has created a standing subcommittee to deal specifically with this component: the Practice Expense Advisory Committee (PEAC).