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 |
|---|---|---|
Financial performance and inpatient payment issues for PPS hospitals (D)The Congress should protect urban hospitals from the adverse effect of nearby hospitals being reclassified to areas with higher wage indexes by computing each area’s wage index as if none of the hospitals located in the area had been reassigned. |
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March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (A)The Secretary should conduct an empirical study to assess the extent of substitution among post-acute care settings. |
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March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (B)While implementing the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 provision to develop patient assessment instruments with comparable common data elements, the Secretary should minimize reporting burden and unnecessary complexity while assuring that only necessary data are collected for payment and quality monitoring. |
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March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (C)The Secretary should develop for potential implementation a patient classification system that predicts costs within and across post-acute settings. |
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March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (D)The Secretary should conduct demonstrations to test the feasibility of including a larger scope of services in the payment bundle. |
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March 2001 |
Prospective payment for post-acute care: current issues and long-term agenda (E)The Secretary should develop a new classification system for skilled nursing facility care while continuing to monitor access and quality. |
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March 2001 |
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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March 2001 |