CMA Asks Blue Shield to Post New Rates Online
[Posted 06/09/08]

As reported in the last issue of CMA Alert, Blue Shield of California recently notified physicians of changes to its standard physician fee schedule set to take effect July 1.

In a letter to Blue Shield on May 22, CMA expressed concern that physicians do not have electronic access to the new fee schedule. Currently, physicians must either call or fax a request to the insurer and wait up to 10 days for a response. CMA has been engaged in productive discussions with Blue Shield about this issue. CMA has asked that Blue Shield post the new rates online so that physicians may access them without delay.

Although CMA is working with Blue Shield to provide online access, you should not wait to begin assessing the impact the changes will have on your practice. To help you, CMA has published a toolkit available free to members at CMA’s members-only website. Included in the toolkit is CMA’s financial impact worksheet, which will help you calculate the impact of the fee schedule changes based on your most commonly billed CPT codes.

We hope to have an update for you very soon. The latest information will be posted here as soon as it becomes available.

Contact: Jodi Black, 916/551-2863 or jblack@cmanet.org.