REGULAR CONTENT
Final ID
533
Type
Original Scientific Research-Oral or Pos
Authors
J Bulman1, A Khosla1, R Ahn1, K Menon1, C Trimmer1, S Kalva1, P Sutphin1
Institutions
1University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
Purpose
To evaluate the 2012 Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services billing data for patterns associated with repeat fistulograms across specialties, practice settings and geographic regions to understand how radiologists compare with other specialties and whether our practice environments affect clinical decisions, such as repeat fistulograms.
Materials & Methods
Medicare data on 880,00 providers was obtained from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services website, http://www.cms.gov. Data was filtered to only include data on individual providers billing for percutaneous evaluation of dialysis fistulas (CPT 36147). Service counts were compared to beneficiary counts to determine the average number of procedures performed per patient by specialty on a national level. Data was examined Excel and R software.
Results
3,716 unique providers performed a total of 304,620 fistulograms on Medicare patients and billed using CPT code 36147. The majority of providers, 1961 physicians, were categorized as Diagnostic Radiology or Interventional Radiology (53%), followed by Vascular Surgery (24%) and Nephrology (10%). Radiologists collectively performed 39% of fistulograms (117,909 procedures), followed by Nephrology (29%) and Vascular Surgery (18%). On average, radiologists performed 1.41 procedures per patient, however this number increases to 1.73 when evaluating only non-facility (outpatient) data. When outliers were removed (36 radiologists, performing greater than 500 fistulograms in 2012), the overall average procedures per patient decreased to 1.27 and the outpatient average dropped to 1.37. Nephrology performed 1.47 procedures per patient, both overall and in the outpatient setting. Vascular surgery performed on average 1.43 procedures per patient overall and 1.53 procedures per patient in the non-facility setting.
Conclusions
Radiologists and vascular surgeons are more likely to perform repeat fistulograms in the non-facility setting than in the facility setting. Further analysis of the data looking at the influence of competitive markets and geography on repeat fistulograms is needed to determine whether unique environments affect the number of procedures performed per patient.
Final ID
533
Type
Original Scientific Research-Oral or Pos
Authors
J Bulman1, A Khosla1, R Ahn1, K Menon1, C Trimmer1, S Kalva1, P Sutphin1
Institutions
1University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
Purpose
To evaluate the 2012 Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services billing data for patterns associated with repeat fistulograms across specialties, practice settings and geographic regions to understand how radiologists compare with other specialties and whether our practice environments affect clinical decisions, such as repeat fistulograms.
Materials & Methods
Medicare data on 880,00 providers was obtained from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services website, http://www.cms.gov. Data was filtered to only include data on individual providers billing for percutaneous evaluation of dialysis fistulas (CPT 36147). Service counts were compared to beneficiary counts to determine the average number of procedures performed per patient by specialty on a national level. Data was examined Excel and R software.
Results
3,716 unique providers performed a total of 304,620 fistulograms on Medicare patients and billed using CPT code 36147. The majority of providers, 1961 physicians, were categorized as Diagnostic Radiology or Interventional Radiology (53%), followed by Vascular Surgery (24%) and Nephrology (10%). Radiologists collectively performed 39% of fistulograms (117,909 procedures), followed by Nephrology (29%) and Vascular Surgery (18%). On average, radiologists performed 1.41 procedures per patient, however this number increases to 1.73 when evaluating only non-facility (outpatient) data. When outliers were removed (36 radiologists, performing greater than 500 fistulograms in 2012), the overall average procedures per patient decreased to 1.27 and the outpatient average dropped to 1.37. Nephrology performed 1.47 procedures per patient, both overall and in the outpatient setting. Vascular surgery performed on average 1.43 procedures per patient overall and 1.53 procedures per patient in the non-facility setting.
Conclusions
Radiologists and vascular surgeons are more likely to perform repeat fistulograms in the non-facility setting than in the facility setting. Further analysis of the data looking at the influence of competitive markets and geography on repeat fistulograms is needed to determine whether unique environments affect the number of procedures performed per patient.