Primary Care Physician Lawsuit Alleges Medicare Bias for Specialists

On August 5, 2011, six physicians at the Center for Primary Care in August, Georgia filed a lawsuit alleging that the Medicare payment structure has a bias favoring specialists at the expense of primary care physicians. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Fisher, et al. v. Berwick, et al., say the bias developed over time because the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rely on the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC), to the point that the RUC has acted as an unchartered federal advisory committee . . .