Economics Update: Rawson Appointed to Advisory Panel
James V. Rawson, MD, chair of the American College of Radiology's 2004-2005 Economics Committee on the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS) and Ambulatory Payment Classification (APC) Groups, has recently been appointed to serve on the Advisory Panel on Ambulatory Payment Classification (APC) Groups. Rawson is the first radiologist to be appointed to the panel since its establishment in November 2000.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) is mandated by section 1833(t)(9)(A) of the Social Security Act, as amended and redesignated by sections 201(h) and 202(a)(2) of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999 (BBRA), to consult with an advisory panel on the ambulatory payment classification (APC) groups.
The panel meets 3 times annually to review the APC groups and to provide technical advice to the Secretary of HHS and the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) concerning the clinical integrity of the groups and their associated weights. The panel is technical in nature, and it deals with issues such as the following: addressing whether procedures are similar both clinically and in terms of resource use; assigning new current procedural terminology (CPT) codes to APCs; reassigning codes to different APCs; and reconfiguring the APCs into new APCs. CMS considers the technical advice provided by the Panel as they prepare the proposed rule that proposes changes to the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS) for the next calendar year.
James (Jim) V. Rawson, MD
Rawson completed his undergraduate degree at Tufts University School of Medicine and did graduate studies in chemistry there also. After completing a diagnostic radiology residency at New York Medical College, he completed the body magnetic resonance imaging fellowship at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University in St. Louis, and completed a certificate in health care evaluation at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.
Rawson has been at the Medical College of Georgia since 1995, and serves as the Warren Professor and chair for the Department of Diagnostic Therapeutic and Interventional Radiology of the School of Medicine. He also serves as the medical director and chief of service of radiology services at Medical College of Georgia Health, Inc (MCGHI).
Rawson serves as chair of the ACR's Committee on Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Payment Classification.