How a secretive panel uses data that distort doctors’ pay

How a secretive panel uses data that distort doctors’ pay-washingtonpost: Unknown to most, a single committee of the AMA, the chief lobbying group for physicians, meets confidentially every year to come up with values for most of the services a doctor performs. Those values are required under federal law to be based on the time and intensity of the procedures. The values, in turn, determine what Medicare and most private insurers pay doctors