Dr. Karpman on pandemic-related changes to physician reimbursement

Author(s):

"This year, we saw a decrease of a couple percent for physician reimbursement to levels that were even lower than pre-COVID times," says Edward Karpman, MD, FACS.

In this video, Edward Karpman, MD, FACS, highlights key take-home messages from the session, “Andrology/SexMed Billing and Coding 101,” which he presented at the 24th Annual Fall Scientific Meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America in San Diego, California. Karpman is the medical director of men’s health at El Camino Health in Mountain View, California.

Video Transcript:

Some bad things are happening to physician reimbursement in the coming years. We've seen a reduction since COVID. During COVID, they gave us a nice bump to reward us for being on the front lines and sacrificing our lives when everybody was hiding in their basements. They quickly took it away in the ensuing 2 years. This year, we saw a decrease of a couple percent for physician reimbursement to levels that were even lower than pre-COVID times. In 2018, we were getting paid more for doing these surgeries than we are today. There was a big drop after 2021; it was the peak for us. The forecast for next year according to the CMS final report is that we're going to take another 3.4% pay cut for physician payments.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.