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 Medicare’s payments for inpatient care and for teaching hospitals (E)The Congress should fold inpatient direct graduate medical education costs into prospective payment system payment rates through a revised teaching hospital adjustment. The new adjustment should be set such that the subsidy provided to teaching hospitals continues as under current long-run policy. This recommendation also should be implemented with a reasonable transition to limit the… Read more » |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (A)The Secretary should require providers participating in Medicare to report a minimum, core set of data needed to generate standardized, evidence-based measures of quality and other dimensions of facility performance. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (B)To strengthen the evidence basis of Medicare’s conditions of participation, the Secretary should support additional research on the relationship between health care outcomes and both structural characteristics and processes of care. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (C)The Congress should mandate the Secretary to review and update the conditions of participation on a specific periodic basis and should require the use of negotiated rulemaking to do so. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (E)The Congress should require that the Secretary annually survey at least one-third of each facility type to certify compliance with the conditions of participation. The Secretary should also monitor facilities’ compliance with conditions of participation on an ongoing basis. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (F)The Congress should assure that the federal appropriations process does not impede states’ abilities to fund Medicare and Medicaid survey and certification activities. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (G)State survey agencies should use health care quality measures and other measures of facility performance to: * Determine which facilities to survey more and less frequently, * Target specific issues or quality concerns for focused attention in the survey process, and Monitor facility performance between inspections. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (H)The Congress should authorize the Secretary to develop intermediate sanctions specific to each institutional provider type that reflect the scope and severity of the deficiency and to consider a provider’s past performance in levying sanctions. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (I)The Secretary should take additional steps to ensure that private accrediting organizations with Medicare deeming authority are, in fact, ensuring that facilities meet Medicare certification standards. |
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June 2000 |
Improving quality assurance for institutional providers (J)The Secretary should make more information about the results of the survey and certification process available to beneficiaries. |
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June 2000 |