Physician performance standard rates of increase for federal fiscal year 1994 and physician fee schedule update for calendar year 1994--HCFA. Final notice with comment period.

This notice announces the calendar year (CY) 1994 updates to the Medicare physician fee schedule and the Federal fiscal year (FY) 1994 performance standard rates of increase for expenditures and volume of physicians' services under the Medicare Supplementary Medical Insurance (Part B) program as required by sections 1848 (d) and (f), respectively, of the Social Security Act. The physician performance standard rates of increase for Federal FY 1994 are 8.6 percent for surgical services, 10.5 percent for primary care services, 9.2 percent for other nonsurgical services, and 9.3 percent for all physicians' services. The fee schedule update for CY 1994 is 10.0 percent for surgical services, 7.9 percent for primary care services, and 5.3 percent for other nonsurgical services. This notice also references the surgical and nonsurgical designations for new and revised procedure codes in the Physicians' Current Procedural Terminology, to be used in applying the CY 1994 updates and for establishing and measuring expenditures under the MVPS for FY 1994. These designations appear in Addendum C of the final rule with comment period entitled "Medicare Program; Revisions to Payment Policies and Adjustments to the Relative Value Units under the Physician Fee Schedule for Calendar Year 1994 (BPD-770-FC)," published elsewhere in this Federal Register issue. The new and revised surgical and nonsurgical designations are subject to public comment. In addition, this notice addresses public comments on the "initial" procedure-specific list of surgical services published in our November 25, 1992, notice.