Reimbursement for surgical procedures in gynecologic oncology

Reimbursement for gynecologic oncologists can be categorized into three are as: payments for evaluation and management of clinical diagnosis, payments for chemotherapy, and reimbursement for surgical procedures. Revenue from s urgical care is generally considered the major source of income for gynecol ogic oncologists. The transition to Medicare's resource-based relative valu e scale-based physician payment system began on January 1, 1992, culminatin g nearly a decade of effort by the medical profession and the government to change the way Medicare pays for physician services. The resource-based re lative value scale payment schedule was fully phased in on January 1, 1996, and has been adopted by other third party payers. As a result of this refo rm, relative value units were created for current procedural technology cod es and represent a composite of work, practice, and malpractice expenditure s. When multiplied by a dollar conversion factor, relative value units can be used to calculate the reimbursement amount for all procedures covered by Medicare and other private insurers. Many of the discrepancies in reimburs ement for similar procedures performed by gynecologists and urologists were partially corrected in 1997; however, sex-specific bias still exists in pa yment for surgical procedures performed on men and women. Curr Opin Oncol 2 001, 13:390-393 (C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.