Abstract:

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have instituted reimbursement cuts for procedural services to improve reimbursement for evaluation and management as well as cognitive services. This may affect some fields of medicine more than others. In specialties such as reconstructive plastic surgery, otolaryngology, ophthalmology, and others, reductions in Medicare reimbursement have been demonstrated over time ranging from 14%-38%. There is a paucity of literature surrounding Medicare reimbursement in dermatopathology. Using data from the CMS, we performed an analysis of Medicare reimbursements for the technical and professional components of common dermatopathology procedures from 2011 to 2021 to assess if trends were similar to other fields. Once adjusted for inflation, the procedures examined experienced an average decrease of 6.26% in overall reimbursement (technical plus professional components) from 2011 to 2021. This decrease was less than the average 25% decrease seen in other fields studied to date. The Medicare reimbursement of the professional component experienced an average decrease of 15.01% across different dermatopathology procedures. On the other hand, the Medicare reimbursement of the technical component experienced an average increase of 8.28% across different dermatopathology procedures. This is the first study to comprehensively and longitudinally analyze Medicare reimbursement in dermatopathology. Discerning the relationship between Medicare reimbursement and other factors such as practice expense, physician workload, and patient outcomes requires further study.

Financial Disclosure: No current or relevant financial relationships exist.

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Quoc-Bao Nguyen, MD, MBA