"I decided to try an experiment, recently. I went to my neighborhood grocery store to buy the ingredients for French toast. After the cashier rang up the eggs, I told him I’d only be paying 50% of the price of the bread and milk as part of my multiple product payment reduction plan. (MPPR) I told him, I figured I covered most of the store’s utility costs in the eggs, and since I was combining up all my groceries in one trip, I shouldn’t have to pay over and over for his fixed costs."
Since its inception in April the average reimbursement by Medicare has decreased by 8%.
Apparently more and more payers are getting on this bandwagon as according to the post, other non medicare providers have begun using the MPPR methodology.
As you know each CPT code is assigned as value, based upon:
- Work (skill and effort)
- Practice expense (equipment and facility costs directly related)
- Malpractice cost.
- Geography (location of the practice)
MPPR reasons that if you provide multiple services in one visit, the payer should not be required to pay the practice expense at full rate for every service in the visit, since the first service kind of covered their obligation.
At what point do we as rehabilitation specialist need to say enough?
