In the calendar year (CY) 2026 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed rule, CMS proposes a 2.5% efficiency adjustment to work relative value units (RVUs) and intra-service physician time for non-time-based services. The adjustment is intended to reflect efficiencies gained over time as services mature and become more routinely performed. CMS would apply this adjustment even to codes already reviewed and revalued for CY 2026, layering an additional 2.5% cut onto services whose updates should already capture recent efficiency gains. The 2.5% adjustment would also apply to codes newly created for CY 2026.
This +Insight identifies the existing procedure codes that would be subject to both a proposed work RVU reduction and the efficiency adjustment in CY 2026 and examines the overall impact of this policy.
