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+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 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (A)The Secretary should collect a core set of patient assessment information across all post-acute settings. |
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March 1999 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (B)The Secretary should establish quality monitoring systems for post-acute care as prospective payment systems are implemented. |
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March 1999 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (C)The Secretary should conduct a demonstration to assess the potential of the Functional Independence Measure-Function Related Groups classification system to predict the resource use of intensive rehabilitation patients in skilled nursing facilities. |
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March 1999 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (D)The Secretary should continue to refine the classification system used in the skilled nursing facility prospective payment system to improve its ability to predict the resources associated with nontherapy ancillary services. |
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March 1999 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (E)The Secretary should explore the potential for revising the rehabilitation groups of the classification system used in the skilled nursing facility prospective payment system to reduce reliance on measurements of rehabilitation time. |
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March 1999 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (F)The Secretary should develop a method for updating payment weights in the skilled nursing facility prospective payment system as soon as possible. |
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March 1999 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (G)The Secretary should identify any distortions in the base payment rates of the skilled nursing facility prospective payment system and explore options for correcting them as better data become available. |
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March 1999 |
Post-Acute Care Providers: Moving toward Prospective Payment (H)The Secretary should develop ways to ensure skilled nursing facilities’ accountability for accurately assessing patient needs and classifying them for payment purposes. |
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March 1999 |