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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
Hospice The Congress should update the payment rates for hospice for fiscal year 2012 by 1 percent.	Post-acute care	March 2011
Hospital inpatient and outpatient services The Congress should increase payment rates for the acute care hospital inpatient and outpatient prospective payment systems in 2012 by 1 percent. The Congress should also require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make adjustments to inpatient payment rates in future years to fully recover all overpayments due to documentation and coding improvements.	Hospital	March 2011
Inpatient rehabilitation services The Congress should eliminate the update to the payment rates for inpatient rehabilitation facilities in fiscal year 2012.	Post-acute care	March 2011
Long-term care hospital services The Secretary should eliminate the update to the payment rate for long-term care hospitals for rate year 2012.	Post-acute care	March 2011
Outpatient dialysis services The Congress should update the outpatient dialysis payment rate by 1 percent for calendar year 2012.	Ambulatory care settings	March 2011
Physician and other health professional services The Congress should update payments for physician fee schedule services in 2012 by 1 percent.	Physicians and other health professionals	March 2011
Skilled nursing facility services The Congress should eliminate the update to payment rates for skilled nursing facility services for fiscal year 2012.	Post-acute care	March 2011
Graduate medical education financing: Focusing on educational priorities (1) The Congress should authorize the Secretary to change Medicare’s funding of graduate medical education (GME) to support the workforce skills needed in a delivery system that reduces cost growth while maintaining or improving quality. The Secretary should establish the standards for distributing funds after consultation with representatives that include accrediting organizations, training programs, health care… Read more »	Hospital Physicians and other health professionals	June 2010
Graduate medical education financing: Focusing on educational priorities (2) The Secretary should annually publish a report that shows Medicare medical education payments received by each hospital and each hospital’s associated costs. This report should be publicly accessible and clearly identify each hospital, the direct and indirect medical education payments received, the number of residents and other health professionals that Medicare supports, and Medicare’s share… Read more »	Hospital	June 2010
Graduate medical education financing: Focusing on educational priorities (3) The Secretary should conduct workforce analysis to determine the number of residency positions needed in the United States in total and by specialty. In addition, analysis should examine and consider the optimal level and mix of other health professionals. This work should be based on the workforce requirements of health care delivery systems that provide… Read more »	Hospital Physicians and other health professionals	June 2010