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 |
|---|---|---|
Continuing Reform of Medicare Payments to Physicians (F)To improve the sustainable growth rate system, the Congress should: Revise the sustainable growth rate to include a factor of growth in real gross domestic product per capita plus an allowance for cost increases due to improvements in medical capabilities and advancements in scientific technology. |
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March 1999 |
Continuing Reform of Medicare Payments to Physicians (G)To improve the sustainable growth rate system, the Congress should: Amend a provision of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 to require the Secretary to publish an estimate of conversion factor updates by March 31 of the year before their implementation. |
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March 1999 |
Continuing Reform of Medicare Payments to Physicians (H)To improve the sustainable growth rate system, the Congress should: Reduce time lags between sustainable growth rate measurement periods by allowing calculation of the sustainable growth rate and update adjustment factors on a calendar year basis. |
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March 1999 |
Continuing Reform of Medicare Payments to Physicians (I)To improve the sustainable growth rate system, the Congress should: Require the Secretary to correct estimates used in sustainable growth rate system calculations every year. |
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March 1999 |
Medicare+Choice: A Program in Transition (A)It is too soon to tell whether recent departures from the Medicare managed care program stem from systematic problems with the level or distribution of payment. The Commission plans to monitor and analyze the characteristics of departing plans and the areas they leave and consider general patterns of organization participation, benefits offered, and enrollment. Accordingly,… Read more » |
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March 1999 |
Medicare+Choice: A Program in Transition (B)The Secretary should continue to work with organizations offering plans and other interested parties to identify specific regulations or other program policies for which changes, delays in implementation, or administrative flexibility might reduce the burden of compliance without compromising the objectives of the Medicare+Choice program. |
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March 1999 |
Medicare+Choice: A Program in Transition (C)As quickly as feasible, the Secretary should develop the capability to use diagnosis data from all sites of care for risk adjustment. |
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March 1999 |
Medicare+Choice: A Program in Transition (D)The Secretary’s plan to phase in the interim risk adjustment system- with a method that uses a weighted blend of the payment amounts that would apply under the interim system and those that would apply under the current system- is sound. The weight on the interim payment amounts should be back-end loaded. That is, the… Read more » |
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March 1999 |
Medicare+Choice: A Program in Transition (E)The Congress should move the deadline for the adjusted community rate proposal submission to later in the year to allow organizations to include more of their cost information and more details of Medicare payment methods in their projections. |
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March 1999 |
Medicare+Choice: A Program in Transition (F)Medicare+Choice organizations should continue to have the flexibility to tailor their benefit packages within their service areas as long as Medicare payments vary by county within a service area. Without this flexibility, organizations may withdraw from counties with lower payments, reducing beneficiary access to new options. |
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March 1999 |