President Obama signed a defense spending bill that contained a provision freezing the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule conversion factor for January and February of 2010. The conversion factor will stay temporarily at the 2009 rate ($36.0666) for speech-language pathologists, audiologists, physicians, and other practitioners. The postponement in the short term eliminates a 21 percent Medicare reduction for 2010. ASHA's updated analysis of the 2010 Medicare Fee Schedule for both audiologists and speech-language pathologists is available on the ASHA Web site.

Both health care reform bills passed by the House and Senate contain provisions to provide modest increases to the conversion factor in 2010. These bills are being merged together for a final vote which congressional leaders have said they would like to have completed prior to President Obama's State of the Union address in late January.

National rates (not considering local geographic adjustors) for frequently billed speech-language pathology services will be $154.37 for speech and language evaluation, $63.84 for speech and language treatment, and $99.18 for swallowing treatment.

Common audiology procedures will be paid at the following national rates: $40.39 for comprehensive audiometry and $15.51 for tympanometry. The 2010 rates for the three new bundled procedure codes are $94.86 for basic vestibular evaluation, $20.56 for tympanometry and reflex threshold measurements, and $31.38 for acoustic immittance testing.

Additionally, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has instructed its contractors to hold claims for services paid under the 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for the first ten business days of January (January 1 through January 15). Claims for services on or before December 31, 2009 will be paid normally. CMS is holding January claims because of the 21.2% reduction in the conversion factor that will take effect January 1, 2010. Congress may pass legislation to prevent this reduction from taking place. As this legislation may not happen before January 1, 2010, but would likely be retroactive to January 1, CMS wants to avoid having to reprocess claims paid under the 21.2% reduction.

ASHA will keep members updated as to any progress in Congress on this issue. For questions or further information, please contact Kate Romanow, ASHA's Director of Health Care Regulatory Advocacy, at 301-296-5671 or kromanow@asha.org.