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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
Medicare payment for ambulance services (1) The Congress should: allow the three temporary ambulance add-on policies to expire; direct the Secretary to rebalance the relative values for ambulance services by lowering the relative value of basic life support nonemergency services and increasing the relative values of other ground transports. Rebalancing should be budget neutral relative to current law and maintain payments… Read more »	Ambulatory care settings	June 2013
Medicare payment for ambulance services (2) The Congress should direct the Secretary to: promulgate national guidelines to more precisely define medical necessity requirements for both emergency and nonemergency (recurring and nonrecurring) ground ambulance transport services; develop a set of national edits based on those guidelines to be used by all claims processors; and identify geographic areas and/or ambulance suppliers and providers… Read more »	Ambulatory care settings	June 2013
Ambulatory surgical center services The Congress should eliminate the update to the payment rates for ambulatory surgical centers for calendar year 2014. The Congress should also require ambulatory surgical centers to submit cost data.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2013
Hospice services The Congress should eliminate the update to the hospice payment rates for fiscal year 2014.	Post-acute care	March 2013
Hospital inpatient and outpatient services The Congress should increase payment rates for the inpatient and outpatient prospective payment systems in 2014 by 1 percent. For inpatient services, the Congress should also require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use the difference between the statutory update and the recommended 1 percent update to offset increases in payment rates due… Read more »	Hospital	March 2013
Inpatient rehabilitation facility services The Congress should eliminate the update to the Medicare payment rates for inpatient rehabilitation facilities in fiscal year 2014.	Post-acute care	March 2013
Long-term care hospital services The Secretary should eliminate the update to the payment rates for long-term care hospitals for fiscal year 2014.	Post-acute care	March 2013
Medicare Advantage special needs plans (1) The Congress should permanently reauthorize institutional special needs plans.	Part C (Medicare Advantage)	March 2013
Medicare Advantage special needs plans (2) The Congress should: allow the authority for chronic care special needs plans (C–SNPs) to expire, with the exception of C–SNPs for a small number of conditions, including end-stage renal disease, HIV/AIDS, and chronic and disabling mental health conditions; direct the Secretary, within three years, to permit Medicare Advantage plans to enhance benefit designs so that… Read more »	Beneficiaries and coverage Part C (Medicare Advantage)	March 2013
Medicare Advantage special needs plans (3) The Congress should permanently reauthorize dual-eligible special needs plans (D–SNPs) that assume clinical and financial responsibility for Medicare and Medicaid benefits and allow the authority for all other D–SNPs to expire.	Part C (Medicare Advantage)	March 2013