1. Could you send me the RUC's recommendations today? See below. 2. If the recommendations aren’t able to be given to me today, or even Monday, when will the RUC’s recommendations from this week’s meetings be posted online for the public to read? Before the next CMS rule? The availability of RUC minutes for the current meeting cycle are tied to when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) posts recommendations that the government's regulatory process has collected from other sources (hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, private health insurers and others). CMS typically posts this material on or about July 1, 2018. At that time, the AMA will post the minutes/documents from the RUC’s April 2017, October 2017 and January 2018 meetings. Minutes and document from the October 2017 meeting are part of the next CMS rule making cycle and won’t be posted until the relevant CMS release on or about July 1, 2018. 3. The AMA has told me it is transparent about the RUC. But doesn’t the confidentiality agreement contradict that? More than 300 individuals attend each RUC meeting. The attendees are physicians, specialty society staff, and representatives from non-MD/DO health care professions, CMS representatives, other government representatives, researchers, foreign delegations and other interested parties. Any individual requesting to register for a RUC meeting has been afforded this opportunity. Several members of the media have been invited to attend. In addition, the minutes of each meeting have been published in a publicly available database product, the RBRVS Data Manager, since 2007. In order to make every effort to be open, the RUC has implemented a number of additional transparency measures in 2013. • The vote total for each individual CPT code is published on web (November 2013) • Minutes of each RUC meeting is published on web (November 2013) • RUC meeting dates and locations is published with greater visibility (October 2013) This additional information was added to the RUC website (www.ama-assn.org/go/rbrvs). 4. Does the AMA intend to open RUC meetings to media and the public at any point in the future? RUC meetings are open to media and the public. Any individual requesting to attend a RUC meeting has been afforded this opportunity. The meeting includes an open discussion of proprietary information submitted by code applicants, which in some cases can impact financial markets. Meeting participants have been promised confidentiality regarding their proposals for new CPT codes. While you are welcome to report how the RUC process works in action, we ask you to honor the confidentiality extended to code applicants who have submitted proprietary proposals for new CPT codes and who are going through the RUC review process for the first time.