Methodology and challenges of setting tariffs:An overview on how to use Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) in determining the physician's payment rate

In the late 1970s, and the early 1980s, the concerns of policy makers and researchers in the health sector of the United States on the constraints of the payment system commonly used by Medicare to pay the physicians increased a great deal. The policymakers thought of an alternative model as a potential tool to pay the services provided by the physicians. Therefore, in 1988, a group of health economists and researchers at Harvard University designed a method to determine the relative value for each service by studying the resources used for providing medical care services and provided a way to expand such model. Researchers conducted this study at three stages. To calculate the logical amount of the physicians’ payments based on the resources they spent, researches produced relative value units for different service codes, this method which is known as RBRVS was established as the basis for tariff calculation and paying the physicians.Due to the importance of the methods for setting tariffs and determining the health service rates in our country and the fact that the country's tariff system is based on studies carried out in the US, this article is the summarization and compilation of eleven related and important articles on setting tariffs in America based on RBRVS.