Reimbursement versus effort in medical physics practice in radiation oncology

The changes in health care reimbursement have the potential to affect the availability of quality medical physicist service in patient care. A survey was conducted by the AAPM Professional Council and the ACMP to collect cost information for special medical physics consultation, CPT4-77370 and continuing medical physics, CPT4-77336. The data collected from the survey was compared to current reimbursement schemes for a number of special procedures. Under varying reimbursement schemes, the costs of the medical physics services provided cannot be recaptured by the institution. It remains important for medical physicists to assess our utilization of resources and allocation to each of the services we provide and to understand the implications of policy changes at the federal and local levels.