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.
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Improving payment for inpatient hospital care in rural areas (B)The Congress should require the Secretary to develop a graduated adjustment to the rates used in the inpatient prospective payment system for hospitals with low overall volumes of discharges. This adjustment should only apply to hospitals that are more than a specified number of miles from another facility providing inpatient care, with appropriate exceptions for… Read more » |
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Prospective payment for home health services in rural areas (A)The Congress should not exempt rural home health services from the prospective payment system. |
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Prospective payment for home health services in rural areas (B)The Secretary should study a sample of home health providers: to evaluate the impact of prospective payment on home health in rural areas; to evaluate costs that may affect the adequacy of prospective payments, and to find ways to improve all cost reports. |
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Quality of care in rural areas (A)The Secretary should require the peer review organizations to include rural populations and providers when carrying out their quality improvement activities. |
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Financial performance and inpatient payment issues for PPS hospitals (D)The Congress should protect urban hospitals from the adverse effect of nearby hospitals being reclassified to areas with higher wage indexes by computing each area’s wage index as if none of the hospitals located in the area had been reassigned. |
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Reconciling Medicare+Choice payments and fee-for-service spending (D)In defining local payment areas, the Secretary should explore using areas that contain sufficient numbers of Medicare beneficiaries to produce reliable estimates of spending and risk. |
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