How to Get a Medicare Fee Schedule for Physicians

The Medicare physician fee schedule provides extensive information about more than 10,000 services that doctors perform and that Medicare covers, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The fee schedule provides a complete list of all covered services, adjustment policies based on geographical region and practice setting, and calculations for the role the physician plays in the procedure. Medicare fee schedules, procedure lists and formulas for calculation are available from multiple sources.

Instructions

• 1

  Visit Medicare's website to get a physician fee schedule. Medicare's physician fee schedule search site allows you to search the complete procedure code list for all codes, a range of codes or a single code to determine the physician fee and value formulas (link in References). The site also provides links to download the complete national fee schedule files and value worksheets in .zip format.

• 2

  Use the online resources developed by the American Medical Association to get a Medicare schedule of fees. Since the AMA owns the rights to the billing and coding system used by American physicians, the AMA's website offers doctors and other users tools for searching or downloading the complete physician fee schedule, or just searching specific sections (link in References). The AMA also provides detailed calculations for fees based on the variables that Medicare uses, such as practice setting and geographical area.

• 3

  Check local medical libraries for a complete hard copy of the current year's Medicare physician fee schedule. Most medical libraries---especially those associated with a teaching hospital or medical school---buy a complete hard copy of the fee schedule, procedure codes and calculation data every year when Medicare publishes it.

• 4

  Purchase a copy of the full Medicare physician payment fee schedule from the American Medical Association (link in References). The AMA bookstore allows you to buy a hard copy of the complete publication rather than download it from the AMA or from Medicare.