How to Review Your Hospital wRVU Report: A Physician Checklist

1. Agree on what the report measures

Ask whether the report groups work by service date, charge-posting date or payment date. Confirm its cutoff, included clinicians, locations and correction cycle. A late September service posted in October can create an apparent monthly shortfall that resolves in the next report.

Read the written compensation terms for the RVU schedule/version, eligible services, thresholds, attribution and adjustment rules. CMS publishes work, practice-expense and malpractice RVUs for Medicare payment; work RVUs alone are not the Medicare payment amount. A contract's dollars per wRVU must be checked separately.

2. Request a report you can reconcile

Within your hospital's approved reporting environment, request enough detail to follow each credited line and subsequent adjustment. This is a suggested review format, not a universal reporting requirement.

• Service and posting dates, procedure code, modifiers, units, rendering clinician and credited work RVUs.
• The source schedule/version, any local credit adjustment and an explanation of how modifiers affect credit.
• An internal reference linking the original entry to reversals, corrected charges or re-postings.
• Separate fields or reports for billed amounts, collections and productivity credit so unlike measures are not compared.

3. Reconcile a small sample before the whole month

Choose a few common services and one adjusted or missing-looking entry. Match each against the authorized activity record. Check code year, units, clinician attribution and whether an original charge was reversed and replaced. If a code is absent from a reference tool, mark it for review rather than assigning zero work RVUs.

Use the CMS file corresponding to the agreed reference period when comparing values. If the employer uses an older schedule or a contractual adjustment, document that difference before calculating a variance. For complex procedures, including interventional cardiology, involve a qualified specialty coder rather than inferring payable components from procedure names.

4. Keep a resolution log

For each question, record the reporting period, internal reference, expected and reported credit, suspected reason, responsible team and outcome. Classify explanations such as timing, attribution, coding, schedule version or contract interpretation. Recheck confirmed corrections on the next report.

For a simple fictional example, a report shows 100 work RVUs while your matched worksheet shows 104. Ask what explains the four-unit difference before applying a bonus rate. The compensation effect depends on your agreement and whether a correction changes payable credit or crosses a threshold.

Use RVUDoc for the planning step

You can model aggregate annual work RVUs and contract assumptions in the calculator after reconciliation. This checklist is a manual review process, not a claim audit or a guarantee of additional pay. Keep patient records and identifiable billing exports in authorized hospital systems; do not put them in calculator names, shared links or support emails.