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Advising the Congress on Medicare issues
MedPAC > Recommendations > Mandated report: Improving Medicare’s payment system for outpatient therapy services (1)

Mandated report: Improving Medicare’s payment system for outpatient therapy services (1)

June 14, 2013

The Congress should direct the Secretary to:

  • reduce the certification period for the outpatient therapy plan of care from 90 days to 45 days, and
  • develop national guidelines for therapy services, implement payment edits at the national level based on these guidelines that target implausible amounts of therapy, and use authorities granted by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 to target high-use geographic areas and aberrant providers.

Appeared in: June 2013 - Chapter 9

Topics: Ambulatory care settings.