Commission Recommendations
MedPAC makes recommendations to the Congress and to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on issues affecting the administration of the Medicare program. With its recommendations, the Commission strives to improve the delivery of care, while ensuring financial stability and maximizing value for the program. After extensive analysis and evaluation, our recommendations are discussed and voted on by Commissioners in our public meetings. Recommendations are typically published in two main reports, released in March and June of each year.
| Recommendations | Topic(s) | Date |
|---|---|---|
Mandated report: Evaluating the skilled nursing facility value-based purchasing program (1)The Congress should eliminate Medicare’s current skilled nursing facility (SNF) value-based purchasing program and establish a new SNF value incentive program (VIP) that: scores a small set of performance measures; incorporates strategies to ensure reliable measure results; establishes a system for distributing rewards that minimizes cliff effects; accounts for differences in patient social risk factors… Read more » |
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June 2021 |
Mandated report: Evaluating the skilled nursing facility value-based purchasing program (2)The Secretary should finalize development of and begin to report patient experience measures for skilled nursing facilities. |
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June 2021 |
Replacing the Medicare Advantage quality bonus programThe Congress should replace the current Medicare Advantage (MA) quality bonus program with a new MA value incentive program that: scores a small set of population-based measures; evaluates quality at the local market level; uses a peer-grouping mechanism to account for differences in enrollees’ social risk factors; establishes a system for distributing rewards with no… Read more » |
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June 2020 |
Hospital inpatient and outpatient servicesThe Congress should: For 2021, update the 2020 Medicare base payment rates for acute care hospitals by 2 percent; and Provide hospitals with an amount equal to the difference between the update recommendation and the amount specified in current law through the Commission’s recommended hospital value incentive program (HVIP) |
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March 2020 |
Hospital inpatient and outpatient servicesThe Congress should: Replace Medicare’s current hospital quality programs with a new hospital value incentive program (HVIP) that: includes a small set of population-based outcome, patient experience, and value measures; scores all hospitals based on the same absolute and prospectively set performance targets; accounts for differences in patients’ social risk factors by distributing payment adjustments… Read more » |
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March 2019 |
The Medicare Advantage program: Status report (1)For Medicare Advantage contract consolidations involving different geographic areas, the Secretary should: for any consolidations effective on or after January 1, 2018, require companies to report quality measures using the geographic reporting units and definitions as they existed prior to consolidation, and determine star ratings as though the consolidations had not occurred, and maintain the… Read more » |
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March 2018 |
The Medicare Advantage program: Status report (2)The Secretary should: establish geographic areas for Medicare Advantage quality reporting that accurately reflect health care market areas, and calculate star ratings for each contract at the geographic level for public reporting and for the determination of quality bonuses. |
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March 2018 |
The Medicare Advantage program: Status report (1)The Congress should eliminate the cap on benchmark amounts and the doubling of the quality increases in specified counties. |
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March 2016 |
Home health care servicesThe Congress should direct the Secretary to reduce payments to home health agencies with relatively high risk-adjusted rates of hospital readmission. |
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March 2014 |
Outpatient dialysis services (2)The Congress should direct the Secretary to: * include a measure that assesses poor outcomes related to anemia in the End-Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program. * redesign the low-volume payment adjustment to consider a facility’s distance to the nearest facility. * audit dialysis facilities’ cost report data. |
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March 2014 |