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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
Home health care services The Commission reiterates its March 2011 recommendations on improving the home health payment system.	Post-acute care	March 2012
Hospice services The Congress should update the payment rates for hospice for fiscal year 2013 by 0.5 percent	Post-acute care	March 2012
Hospital inpatient and outpatient services (1) The Congress should increase payment rates for the inpatient and outpatient prospective payment systems in 2013 by 1 percent. For inpatient services, the Congress should also require the Secretary of Health and Human Services beginning in 2013 to use the difference between the increase under current law and the Commission’s recommended update to gradually recover… Read more »	Hospital	March 2012
Hospital inpatient and outpatient services (2) The Congress should direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to reduce payment rates for evaluation and management office visits provided in hospital outpatient departments so that total payment rates for these visits are the same whether the service is provided in an outpatient department or a physician office. These changes should be phased… Read more »	Delivery system reforms Physicians and other health professionals	March 2012
Hospital inpatient and outpatient services (3) The Secretary of Health and Human Services should conduct a study by January 2015 to examine whether access to ambulatory physician and other health professionals’ services for low-income patients would be impaired by setting outpatient evaluation and management payment rates equal to those paid in physician offices. If access will be impaired, the Secretary should… Read more »	Delivery system reforms	March 2012
Inpatient rehabilitation facility services The Congress should eliminate the update to the Medicare payment rates for inpatient rehabilitation facilities in fiscal year 2013.	Post-acute care	March 2012
Long-term care hospital services The Secretary should eliminate the update to the payment rates for long-term care hospitals for fiscal year 2013.	Post-acute care	March 2012
Outpatient dialysis services The Congress should update the outpatient dialysis payment rate by 1 percent for calendar year 2013.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2012
Skilled nursing facility services (1) The Congress should eliminate the market basket update and direct the Secretary to revise the prospective payment system for skilled nursing facilities for 2013. Rebasing payments should begin in 2014, with an initial reduction of 4 percent and subsequent reductions over an appropriate transition until Medicare’s payments are better aligned with providers’ costs.	Post-acute care	March 2012
Skilled nursing facility services (2) The Congress should direct the Secretary to reduce payments to skilled nursing facilities with relatively high risk-adjusted rates of rehospitalization during Medicare-covered stays and be expanded to include a time period after discharge from the facility.	Post-acute care	March 2012