Geographic Trends for Medicare Reimbursement Rates in Pain Management Anesthesia from 2000 to 2022

Abstract

Over the past few decades, the reimbursement rates for Medicare have been decreasing steadily. Although some studies have previously evaluated trends in reimbursements in other fields, a comprehensive evaluation of geographic monetary reimbursement trends in pain management anesthesia has not yet been conducted. Because these trends have not been evaluated previously, we aimed to evaluate national and geographic trends of Medicare reimbursement rates in pain management anesthesia from 2000 to 2022. We selected 155 frequently billed codes to determine trends of reimbursement rates specific to pain management anesthesia. Our study shows that over the last 23 years, the inflation-adjusted Medicare reimbursement for the selected pain management procedures decreased annually by 2.81%. The findings raise concerns for anesthesiologists providing pain management care to Medicare-insured patients, because lower reimbursement rates may limit procedure availability and decrease the number of providers accepting Medicare.