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 |
|---|---|---|
Improving payment for inpatient hospital care in rural areas (E)The Congress should raise the cap on the disproportionate share add-on a rural hospital can receive from 5.25 percent to 10 percent. |
|
June 2001 |
Improving payment for inpatient hospital care in rural areas (F)The Congress should revise the target cap for inpatient psychiatric facilities in a way that better addresses differences among them. |
|
June 2001 |
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 |
Quality of care in rural areas (A)The Secretary should require the peer review organizations to include rural populations and providers when carrying out their quality improvement activities. |
|
June 2001 |
Quality of care in rural areas (B)MedPAC reiterates its June 2000 recommendation that the Congress should require the Secretary to survey at least one-third of each facility type annually to certify compliance with the conditions of participation. |
|
June 2001 |
Rural beneficiaries’ access to careThe Secretary should identify strategies to increase rural beneficiaries’ participation in government programs that cover Medicare premiums and/or deductibles and coinsurance. |
|
June 2001 |
Accounting for new technology in hospital prospective payment systems (A)In the outpatient payment system, pass-through payments for specific technologies should be made only when a technology is new or substantially improved and adds substantially to the cost of care in an ambulatory payment classification group. |
|
March 2001 |
Accounting for new technology in hospital prospective payment systems (B)In the outpatient payment system, the Secretary should develop formalized procedures for expeditiously assigning codes, updating relative weights, and investigating the need for service classification changes to recognize the costs of new and substantially improved technologies. |
|
March 2001 |
Accounting for new technology in hospital prospective payment systems (C)Pass-through payments in the outpatient payment system should be made on a budget-neutral basis and the costs of new or substantially improved technologies should be factored into the update to the outpatient conversion factor. |
|
March 2001 |