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 |
|---|---|---|
Enhancing Medicare’s technical assistance to and oversight of providers (5)The Congress should require the Secretary to expand interventions that promote systemic remediation of quality problems for persistently low-performing providers. |
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June 2011 |
Enhancing Medicare’s technical assistance to and oversight of providers (6)The Secretary should establish a public recognition program for high-performing providers that participate in collaboratives or learning networks, or otherwise act as mentors, to improve the quality of lower performing providers. |
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June 2011 |
Improving payment accuracy and appropriate use of ancillary services (1)The Secretary should accelerate and expand efforts to package discrete services in the physician fee schedule into larger units for payment. |
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June 2011 |
Improving payment accuracy and appropriate use of ancillary services (2)The Congress should direct the Secretary to apply a multiple procedure payment reduction to the professional component of diagnostic imaging services provided by the same practitioner in the same session. |
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June 2011 |
Improving payment accuracy and appropriate use of ancillary services (3)The Congress should direct the Secretary to reduce the physician work component of imaging and other diagnostic tests that are ordered and performed by the same practitioner. |
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June 2011 |
Improving payment accuracy and appropriate use of ancillary services (4)The Congress should direct the Secretary to establish a prior authorization program for practitioners who order substantially more advanced diagnostic imaging services than their peers. |
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June 2011 |
Physician and other health professional servicesThe Congress should update payments for physician fee schedule services in 2012 by 1 percent. |
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March 2011 |
Graduate medical education financing: Focusing on educational priorities (1)The Congress should authorize the Secretary to change Medicare’s funding of graduate medical education (GME) to support the workforce skills needed in a delivery system that reduces cost growth while maintaining or improving quality. The Secretary should establish the standards for distributing funds after consultation with representatives that include accrediting organizations, training programs, health care… Read more » |
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June 2010 |
Graduate medical education financing: Focusing on educational priorities (3)The Secretary should conduct workforce analysis to determine the number of residency positions needed in the United States in total and by specialty. In addition, analysis should examine and consider the optimal level and mix of other health professionals. This work should be based on the workforce requirements of health care delivery systems that provide… Read more » |
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June 2010 |
Graduate medical education financing: Focusing on educational priorities (4)The Secretary should report to the Congress on how residency programs affect the financial performance of sponsoring institutions and whether residency programs in all specialties should be supported equally. |
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June 2010 |