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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
Ambulatory surgical center services The Congress should eliminate the update to the payment rates for ambulatory surgical centers for calendar year 2017. The Congress should also require ambulatory surgical centers to submit cost data.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2016
Home health care services The Congress should direct the Secretary to eliminate the payment update for 2017 and implement a two-year rebasing of the payment system beginning in 2018 for home health care services. The Congress should direct the Secretary to revise the prospective payment system to eliminate the use of therapy visits as a factor in payment determinations,… Read more »	Post-acute care	March 2016
Hospice services The Congress should eliminate the update to the hospice payment rates for fiscal year 2017.	Post-acute care	March 2016
Hospital inpatient and outpatient services The Congress should direct the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to: update inpatient and outpatient payments by the amount specified in current law; reduce Medicare payment rates for 340B hospitals’ separately payable Part B drugs by 10 percent of the average sales price; direct the program savings from reducing Part B… Read more »	Drugs, Devices, and Tests Hospital	March 2016
Inpatient rehabilitation facility services (1) The Congress should eliminate the update to the Medicare payment rate for inpatient rehabilitation facilities in fiscal year 2017.	Post-acute care	March 2016
Inpatient rehabilitation facility services (2) The Secretary should conduct focused medical record review of inpatient rehabilitation facilities that have unusual patterns of case mix and coding.	Post-acute care	March 2016
Inpatient rehabilitation facility services (3) The Secretary should expand the inpatient rehabilitation facility outlier pool to redistribute payments more equitably across cases and providers.	Post-acute care	March 2016
Long-term care hospital services The Secretary should eliminate the update to the payment rates for long-term care hospitals for fiscal year 2017.	Post-acute care	March 2016
Outpatient dialysis services The Congress should increase the outpatient dialysis base payment rate by the update specified in current law for calendar year 2017.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2016
Physician and other health professional services The Congress should increase payment rates for physician and other health professional services by the amount specified in current law for calendar year 2017.	Physicians and other health professionals	March 2016