This year, in addition to its traditional margin calculation, the Commission is considering a new aspect of the relationship between Medicare payments and providers’ costs: Medicare payments relative to providers’ marginal costs, i.e. marginal profit.

Medicare has more than 20 distinct systems for paying health care providers who serve Medicare beneficiaries. Even we’d admit that it’s a lot to keep up with. MedPAC's Payment Basics series can help.

The MedPAC blog will be a mechanism for sharing information about MedPAC’s work and activities in a quicker, less formal, and more wired format than our traditional reports to Congress. The blog – written by MedPAC staff – is intended to be a resource for Congressional staff and other consumers of our work and will complement our public meetings and formal publications.