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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
Outpatient dialysis services For calendar year 2022, the Congress should eliminate the update to the 2021 Medicare end-stage renal disease prospective payment system base rate.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2021
Improving Medicare’s end-stage renal disease prospective payment system (1) The Congress should direct the Secretary to eliminate the end-stage renal disease prospective payment system’s transitional drug add-on payment adjustment for new drugs in an existing end-stage renal disease functional category.	Ambulatory care settings	June 2020
Improving Medicare’s end-stage renal disease prospective payment system (2) The Secretary should replace the current low-volume and rural payment adjustments in the end-stage renal disease prospective payment system with a single adjustment for dialysis facilities that are isolated and consistently have low volume, where low-volume criteria are empirically derived.	Ambulatory care settings Regional issues	June 2020
Ambulatory surgical center services The Secretary should also require ambulatory surgical centers to report cost data. For calendar year 2021, in the absence of cost data, the Congress should eliminate the update to the calendar year 2020 Medicare conversion factor for ambulatory surgical centers.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2020
Outpatient dialysis services For CY 2021, the Congress should update the CY 2020 Medicare ESRD PPS base rate by the amount determined in current law	Ambulatory care settings	March 2020
Ambulatory surgical center services The 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.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2019
Outpatient dialysis services For 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.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2019
Ambulatory surgical center services The Congress should eliminate the calendar year 2019 update to the Medicare payment rates for ambulatory surgical centers. The Congress should also require ambulatory surgical centers to submit cost data.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2018
Outpatient dialysis services For 2019, the Congress should update the calendar year 2018 Medicare end-stage renal disease prospective payment system base rate by the amount determined under current law.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2018
Ambulatory surgical care services The Congress should eliminate the update to the payment rates for ambulatory surgical centers for calendar year 2018. The Congress should also require ambulatory surgical centers to submit cost data	Ambulatory care settings	March 2017