CMS reveals substantial payments for advance care planning (ACP) and an opportunity to bill it without copayment in the final 2016 Medicare physician fee schedule, but providers will have to spend time preparing to dispense the service properly.

Only the physician or practitioner who directly supervises incident-to services may bill for those services, CMS states in the final 2016 Medicare physician fee schedule, released Oct. 30. However, the supervising physician need not be the provider who ordered or initiated the care, the agency explains.

Here's what to expect with your payments next year based on relative value unit (RVU) changes in the final 2016 Medicare physician fee schedule.

Practices that need more time to contest a negative payment adjustments based on their 2014 physician quality reporting system effort, give thanks. CMS has granted the medical community an extension.

A new U.S. budget has extended the 2% sequester cut that has plagued providers since 2013 and made new trouble for providers in practices owned by health systems but located outside of their campuses.

The value-based modifier bonus will be a possibility for most practices in 2018, and the 2016 physician quality reporting program is the key to the as-yet-unspecified windfall.

To boost your chances of quality reporting success, make sure your providers are comfortable with CMS’ basic quality reporting formula: nine measures across three national quality domains, one cross-cutting measure for at least 50% of eligible patients and a consideration of measures practices might report next year before the year ends.

Our roundup of the rest of the Physician Fee Schedule, from the conversion factor to rural health clinics.

This chart shows payments for commonly billed codes for three time periods:pre-MACRA. post-MACRA but pre-2016 physician fee schedule, and after the fee schedule kicks in.