Gastroenterology Coding Alert

Changes to the relative value units (RVUs) for observation care codes and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) codes were among the corrections published by HCFA in the March 27, 2001, Federal Register. The corrections were made to the final rule with comment period (HCFAs annual announcement of rule changes) published in the Nov. 1, 2000, Federal Register. Many of these errors made their way into the 2001 Medicare Physicians Fee Schedule Database (MPFSD).

HCFA also corrected the 2001 transitional nonfacility RVU for screening colonoscopies for high-risk individuals (G0105). Because this error was not in the MPFSD, most gastroenterology practices should already have correct information on this code.

For a complete list of codes with revised RVUs, descriptors and status indicators, go to the online version of the March 27, 2001, Federal Register, which is at www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a010327c.html.

The RVU file is under the Rules subhead of the Health Care Financing Administration section.

Adobe Acrobat reader software may be needed to open this file and can be downloaded from the Coding Institutes Web site at www.codinginstitute.com/reader/index.html.