The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. last week to discuss various Medicare payment issues.

Among the issues discussed at MedPAC’s April meeting were:

• Medicare skilled nursing facility value-based purchased program.
• Medicare alternative payment models (APMs).
• Medicare Advantage benchmark policy.
• Medicare indirect medical education (Medicare IME) payments.
• Medicare vaccine coverage and payments.
• Medicare payment for prescription drugs prescribed on an outpatient basis.
• Private equity and Medicare.
• Medicare clinical laboratory fee schedule.

MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues involving Medicare.  While its recommendations are not binding on either Congress or the administration, MedPAC is highly influential in governing circles and its recommendations often find their way into legislation, regulations, and new public policy.

Go here for links to the policy briefs and presentations that supported MedPAC’s discussion of these issues.…

MedPAC has recommended modest pay increases for some health care providers and no increases for others in its annual report on Medicare payment policy to Congress.

In the report, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommends the following changes in Medicare rates for 2022:

• 2% increase for Medicare inpatient and outpatient services
• 2% increase for long-term-care hospitals
• no increase for doctors and other medical professionals
• no increases for ambulatory surgical centers, outpatient dialysis facilities, skilled nursing facilities, and hospices
• 5% reductions for home health agencies and inpatient rehabilitation facilities

While MedPAC’s recommendations to Congress are not binding on the administration, its work is highly respected and is considered influential in the setting of Medicare rates.

Learn more about MedPAC’s recommendations on rates and other aspects of federal Medicare reimbursement policy from this MedPAC news release and the MedPAC’s newly released Report to the Congress:  Medicare Payment Policy.…

MedPAC thinks maybe that’s the case.

At the recent meeting of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the agency’s commissioners suggested that they may recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reduce its assortment of alternative payment model programs.

As reported by MedPage Today, a draft of MedPAC’s June report to Congress states that

The [Health and Human Services] Secretary should implement a more coordinated portfolio of fewer alternative payment models (APMs) that support the strategic objectives of reducing spending and improving quality.

In recent years CMS’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has tested 54 different APMs; few have led to improvements in the quality of care and even fewer have produced savings.  In 2021 the agency is scheduled to operate 13 different APMs, many with multiple payment tracks from which participants can choose.  Now, MedPAC is considering advising CMS on how to target its APMs more effectively and better align its offerings’ incentives and methodologies.

Learn more about MedPAC’s interest in Medicare APMs in the MedPage Today article “MedPAC May Tell Medicare to Slim Down Its Alternative Payment Offerings.”…

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. last week to discuss various Medicare payment issues.

Among the issues discussed at MedPAC’s March meeting were:

• Medicare beneficiary access to care in rural areas
• skilled nursing facility value-based purchasing program and proposed replacement
• streamlining CMS’s portfolio of alternative payment models
• balancing efficiency with equity in Medicare Advantage benchmark policy
• relationship between clinician services and other Medicare services
• revising Medicare’s indirect medical education payments to better reflect teaching hospitals’ costs
• Medicare’s vaccine coverage and payment
• separately payable drugs in the hospital outpatient prospective payment system

MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues involving Medicare.  While its recommendations are not binding on either Congress or the administration, MedPAC is highly influential in governing circles and its recommendations often find their way into legislation, regulations, and new public policy.  Because so many patients of private safety-net hospitals are insured by Medicare, MedPAC’s deliberations are especially important to those hospitals.

Go here for links to the policy briefs and presentations that supported MedPAC’s discussion of these issues.…

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. recently to discuss various Medicare payment issues.

Among the issues discussed at MedPAC’s January meeting were:

• hospital inpatient and outpatient payments
• physician and health professionals payments
• the possible expansion of the post-acute transfer policy to hospice
• ambulatory surgical center, outpatient dialysis, and hospice payments
• Medicare payments for skilled nursing facilities, long-term hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and home health services
• the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation’s development and implementation of alternative payment models
• the future of telehealth after the COVID-19 public health emergency ends
• a status report on the Medicare Part D prescription drug program
• a report on the skilled nursing facility value-based purchasing program and a proposed replacement for that program
• Medicare’s vaccine coverage and payment policies

MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues involving Medicare.  While its recommendations are not binding on either Congress or the administration, MedPAC is highly influential in governing circles and its recommendations often find their way into legislation, regulations, and new public policy.  Because so many patients of private safety-net hospitals are insured by Medicare, MedPAC’s deliberations are especially important to those hospitals.

Go here for links to the policy …