> Payers routinely reimburse health-care providers for specialized procedures at high rates, but primary-care visits—which might include chronic-disease managem

> Payers routinely reimburse health-care providers for specialized procedures at high rates, but primary-care visits—which might include chronic-disease management, routine vaccinations, or smoking and diet counselling—generate lower revenues. This imbalance is due, in large part, to the Relative Value Update Committee (R.U.C.), an extraordinarily powerful group of doctors that advises the federal government on reimbursement rates for physicians. The R.U.C. consists of thirty-one doctors convened by the American Medical Association; it’s structured such that each specialty has an equal say. On the R.U.C., urology, thoracic surgery, and head-and-neck surgery have, individually, about the same representation as all of pediatrics. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (C.M.S.), which has final authority to set payment rates for Medicare, has in many years accepted the R.U.C.’s recommendations nearly ninety per cent of the time. This is more deadly than it appears on the surface. For example, this article on life expectancy is a good read. One should pay close attention to the case of South Korea and how they are focusing on the health of the younger generation, which has the best payoff (By the way, I am both a citizen of the US and Croatia. The biggest difference: Croatia is going the right way, the US is not): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/02/21/us-life-expectancy-will-soon-be-on-par-with-mexicos-and-croatias/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/0... Archived version of link: http://archive.is/3EpBi http://archive.is/3EpBi