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Advising the Congress on Medicare issues
MedPAC > Recommendations

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

Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (F)

Until a core set of common data elements for post-acute care is developed, the Secretary should require the Functional Independence Measure as the patient assessment tool for the inpatient rehabilitation prospective payment system.
  • Post-acute care

March 2001

Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (G)

The Secretary should require a high-cost outlier policy of 5 percent for the inpatient rehabilitation payment system and study whether a different percentage policy is needed.
  • Post-acute care

March 2001

Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (H)

The Secretary should reexamine the disproportionate share adjustment for the inpatient rehabilitation prospective payment system.
  • Post-acute care

March 2001

Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (I)

In monitoring the performance of the payment system, the Secretary should pay particular attention to the use of significant change in condition payment adjustments and payments for patients with wound care needs.
  • Post-acute care

March 2001

Financial performance and payment update for facilities exempt from prospective payment

The Secretary should increase the target amount update formula for fiscal year 2001 by up to 0.3 percentage points above the market basket amount.
  • Post-acute care

June 2000

Revising payment methods and monitoring quality of care in traditional Medicare (A)

The Secretary should implement the proposed prospective payment system for home health services on October 1, 2000. To the extent possible, she also should refine the system’s case-mix adjustment before it is implemented.
  • Delivery system reforms
  • Post-acute care

March 2000

Revising payment methods and monitoring quality of care in traditional Medicare (B)

The Secretary should vigorously monitor home health agency behavior under the prospective payment system.
  • Post-acute care

March 2000

Revising payment methods and monitoring quality of care in traditional Medicare (C)

The Congress should require that HCFA establish a prospective payment system for home health goods and services that blends fixed episode payments and per-visit payments.
  • Delivery system reforms
  • Post-acute care

March 2000

Revising payment methods and monitoring quality of care in traditional Medicare (D)

The Secretary should use routinely collected data to refine the case-mix weights over time.
  • Post-acute care

March 2000

Revising payment methods and monitoring quality of care in traditional Medicare (E)

The Secretary should use a home health agency wage index to adjust the prospective payment system rates for local wages.
  • Post-acute care

March 2000