Improving Medicare’s payments for inpatient care and for teaching hospitals (D)

The Congress should give the Secretary explicit authority to adjust the hospital inpatient base payment amounts if anticipated coding improvements in response to refinements in case-mix measurement are expected to increase aggregate payments by a substantial amount during the forthcoming year. This adjustment should be separate from the annual update. Further, the Congress should require the Secretary to measure the extent of actual coding improvements based on the bills providers submit for payment and make a timely adjustment to correct any substantial forecast error.