What Is An Rvu In Medicine

Historically a private group of 29 mostly specialist physicians the american medical association s specialty society relative value scale update committee ruc have largely determined medicare s rvu.
What is an rvu in medicine. In wrvu compensation is based on the activity of a doctor. For example if the threshold is 300 rvus and a doctor gets 350 rvus a month he or she will receive 1894 5 50 rvus x 37 89 as the incentive. A major medical procedure requires more skill and more time so it will generate a higher rvu. The use of rvus to valuate medical services reformed healthcare payment systems.
The cost of maintaining or operating a medical practice. Originally created as the principle unit of the rbrvs for cms rvus became the foundation of the medicare physician fee schedule mpfs as well as the basis of most commercial fee schedules. Each provider determines how much it will charge for services provided but that is not necessarily the amount that will get paid. In medical billing claims are submitted to generate reimbursement and that reimbursement depends on relative value units.
There are several factors that affect the amount that will actually be reimbursed. These factors include rent costs in addition to the price of equipment and supplies. Relative value units or rvus are the foundation of the criteria used to measure any type of medical services offered by physicians in the united states. The fee for each service depends on its relative value units rvus which rank on a common scale the resources used to provide each service.
These resources include the physician s work the expenses of the. When calculating a relative value unit rvu it s easy to become overwhelmed by the math. Relative value units rvus january 12 2015 medicare uses a physician fee schedule to determine payments for over 7 500 physician services. When a provider.
Prior to the implementation of the rbrvs in 1992 physicians set charge rates for the medical care they provided to patients. In medical billing wrvu and rvu basically serve the same purpose of providing a standard of measure in physician compensation.