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 |
|---|---|---|
Hospital inpatient and outpatient services (3)The Congress should extend hold-harmless payments under the outpatient prospective payment system for rural sole community hospitals and other rural hospitals with 100 or fewer beds through calendar year 2006. |
|
March 2005 |
Issues in physician payment policy (A)The Secretary should use Medicare claims data to measure fee-for-service physicians’ resource use and share results with physicians confidentially to educate them about how they compare with aggregated peer performance. The Congress should direct the Secretary to perform this function. |
|
March 2005 |
Issues in physician payment policy (B)The Secretary should improve Medicare’s coding edits that detect unbundled diagnostic imaging services and reduce the technical component payment for multiple imaging services performed on contiguous body parts. |
|
March 2005 |
Issues in physician payment policy (C)The Congress should direct the Secretary to set standards for physicians who bill Medicare for interpreting diagnostic imaging studies. The Secretary should select private organizations to administer the standards. |
|
March 2005 |
Issues in physician payment policy (D)The Congress should direct the Secretary to set standards for all providers who bill Medicare for performing diagnostic imaging studies. The Secretary should select private organizations to administer the standards. |
|
March 2005 |
Issues in physician payment policy (E)The Secretary should include nuclear medicine and PET procedures as designated health services under the Ethics in Patient Referrals Act. |
|
March 2005 |
Issues in physician payment policy (F)The Secretary should expand the definition of physician ownership in the Ethics in Patient Referrals Act to include interests in an entity that derives a substantial proportion of its revenue from a provider of designated health services. |
|
March 2005 |
Outpatient dialysis servicesThe Congress should update the composite rate by the projected rate of increase in the end-stage renal disease market basket index less 0.4 percent for calendar year 2006. |
|
March 2005 |
Physician servicesThe Congress should update payments for physician services by the projected change in input prices less 0.8 percent in 2006. |
|
March 2005 |
Skilled nursing facility services (1)The Congress should eliminate the update to payment rates for skilled nursing facility services for fiscal year 2006. |
|
March 2005 |