Fee schedule drift is the gradual, often unnoticed change in payer reimbursement rates over time. It happens through routine CMS updates, RVU adjustments, quarterly patches, and payer-specific repricing that most practices never actively track. Each change on its own looks small, but stacked over months or years, drift can quietly shift what a practice actually collects for the same codes it billed a year ago.
The risk is that drift rarely announces itself. A claim can process cleanly and still pay less than expected, so there’s no denial or rejection to flag the problem. Practices that don’t audit claims against current fee schedules on a regular basis often discover drift only after months of underpayment have already added up, which is why routine rate checks matter as much as clean claim submission.