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 |
|---|---|---|
Skilled nursing facility services (1)The Secretary should develop a new classification system for care in skilled nursing facilities. |
|
March 2002 |
Skilled nursing facility services (2)If the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services refines the classification system for care in skilled nursing facilities, the temporary payment increase, previously implemented to allow time for refinement, will end. The Congress should retain this money in the base payment rate for skilled nursing facilities. |
|
March 2002 |
Skilled nursing facility services (3)For fiscal year 2003, the Congress should update payments to skilled nursing facilities as follows. For freestanding facilities, no update is necessary. For hospital-based facilities, update payments by market basket and increase payments by 10 percent until a new classification system is developed. |
|
March 2002 |
Prospective payment for home health services in rural areas (A)The Congress should not exempt rural home health services from the prospective payment system. |
|
June 2001 |
Prospective payment for home health services in rural areas (B)The Secretary should study a sample of home health providers: to evaluate the impact of prospective payment on home health in rural areas; to evaluate costs that may affect the adequacy of prospective payments, and to find ways to improve all cost reports. |
|
June 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (A)The Secretary should conduct an empirical study to assess the extent of substitution among post-acute care settings. |
|
March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (B)While implementing the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 provision to develop patient assessment instruments with comparable common data elements, the Secretary should minimize reporting burden and unnecessary complexity while assuring that only necessary data are collected for payment and quality monitoring. |
|
March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (C)The Secretary should develop for potential implementation a patient classification system that predicts costs within and across post-acute settings. |
|
March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (D)The Secretary should conduct demonstrations to test the feasibility of including a larger scope of services in the payment bundle. |
|
March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (E)The Secretary should develop a new classification system for skilled nursing facility care while continuing to monitor access and quality. |
|
March 2001 |