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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Options for slowing the growth of Medicare fee-for-service spending for emergency department servicesThe Secretary should develop and implement a set of national guidelines for coding hospital emergency department visits under the outpatient prospective payment system by 2022. |
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Ambulatory surgical center servicesThe Congress should eliminate the calendar year 2020 update to the Medicare conversion factor for ambulatory surgical centers. The Secretary should require ambulatory surgical centers to report cost data. |
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Home health care servicesFor 2020, the Congress should reduce the calendar year 2019 Medicare base payment rate for home health agencies by 5 percent. |
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Hospice servicesFor 2020, the Congress should reduce the fiscal year 2019 Medicare base payment rates for hospice providers by 2 percent. |
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Hospital inpatient and outpatient servicesThe Congress should: Replace Medicare’s current hospital quality programs with a new hospital value incentive program (HVIP) that: includes a small set of population-based outcome, patient experience, and value measures; scores all hospitals based on the same absolute and prospectively set performance targets; accounts for differences in patients’ social risk factors by distributing payment adjustments… Read more » |
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Inpatient rehabilitation facility servicesFor 2020, the Congress should reduce the fiscal year 2019 Medicare base payment rate for inpatient rehabilitation facilities by 5 percent. Additionally, the Commission reiterates its March 2016 recommendations on the inpatient rehabilitation facility prospective payment system. |
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Long-term care hospital servicesFor 2020, the Secretary should increase the fiscal year 2019 Medicare base payment rates for long-term care hospitals by 2 percent. |
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Outpatient dialysis servicesFor calendar year (CY) 2020, the Congress should update the CY 2019 Medicare end-stage renal disease prospective payment system base rate by the amount determined under current law. |
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Physician and other health professional servicesFor calendar year 2020, the Congress should increase the calendar year 2019 payment rates for physician and other health professional services by the amount specified in current law. |
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Skilled nursing facility services (1)The Congress should proceed to revise the skilled nursing facility prospective payment system in fiscal year 2020 and should annually recalibrate the relative weights of the case-mix groups to maintain alignment of payments and costs. |
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