The secret world of healthcare pricing

The Relative Value Update Committee, known as the RUC is a committee of the AMA. It meets every four months in a hotel conference room. Attendees might hear heated debates between some three dozen doctors over which procedures should be worth and which ones Medicare should pay higher prices for. But RUC meetings are invitation only. Observers are sworn to secrecy. Even the names of the doctors on this private committee were—until recently —kept confidential.