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 |
|---|---|---|
End-stage renal disease payment policies in traditional Medicare (B)The Congress should instruct the Secretary to evaluate whether the composite rate’s unit of payment- a single dialysis session- should be revised to reflect better the way dialysis is furnished. |
|
March 2001 |
End-stage renal disease payment policies in traditional Medicare (C)The Congress should instruct the Secretary to revise the outpatient dialysis payment system to account for factors that affect providers’ costs to deliver high-quality clinical care, including dialysis method, dose, frequency, and patient activity. |
|
March 2001 |
End-stage renal disease payment policies in traditional Medicare (D)The Congress should instruct the Secretary to develop a wage index based on market wage rates for occupations typically used in furnishing dialysis. |
|
March 2001 |
End-stage renal disease payment policies in traditional Medicare (E)For calendar year 2002, the composite rate for outpatient dialysis services should remain unchanged. |
|
March 2001 |
Updating payments for physician services and for care provided in hospital outpatient departments (C)The Secretary should not use an expenditure target to update the conversion factor in the outpatient prospective payment system or to update payments for other ambulatory care settings. |
|
March 2001 |
Assessing the design and impact of the hospital outpatient prospective payment system (A)The Secretary should monitor changes in practice patterns across ambulatory care settings to ensure that differences in payment do not lead to inappropriate shifts in site of care. |
|
June 2000 |
Improving payment for end-stage renal disease services (A)As soon as possible, the Secretary should risk-adjust payments for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) enrolled in Medicare+Choice. |
|
March 2000 |
Improving payment for end-stage renal disease services (B)The Congress should require HCFA to annually review the composite rate payment. |
|
March 2000 |
Improving payment for end-stage renal disease services (C)For fiscal year 2001, the composite rate for outpatient dialysis services should be increased by 2.4 percent. |
|
March 2000 |
Improving payment for end-stage renal disease services (D)HCFA should collect information on ESRD patients’ satisfaction with the quality of and access to care. |
|
March 2000 |