MedPAC has submitted its annual report to Congress.

The congressionally mandated report, titled Report to Congress: Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System, consists of seven chapters:

• Realizing the promise of value-based payment in Medicare: an agenda for change.
  Challenges in maintaining and increasing savings from accountable care organizations (ACOs).
  Replacing the Medicare Advantage quality bonus program.
  Mandated report: Impact of changes in the 21st Century Cures Act to risk adjustment for Medicare Advantage enrollees.
  Realigning incentives in Medicare Part D.
  Separately payable drugs in the hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS).
  Improving Medicare’s end-state renal disease (ESRD) prospective payment system (PPS).

While MedPAC’s recommendations are not binding on Congress or the administration, they are highly respected and often find themselves worked into new law or regulations.

Go here to see MedPAC’s news release accompanying the report and here to find the report itself.…

MedPAC has recommended to Congress changes in Medicare payment rates in the coming year.

In its annual report to Congress, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommended the following rate changes:

acute-care hospitals – a two percent rate increase and a suggestion that the difference between this two percent increase and the payment increase specified by law be used to increase the rewards hospitals may earn under Medicare’s hospital value incentive program.  As a result, the value incentive program would offer a possible 0.8 percent in bonus payments, and with the recommended elimination of the 0.5 percent penalty for which hospitals are at risk, hospitals could average net increases of 3.3 percent.

• ambulatory surgical centers – no rate increase and a requirement that such facilities report cost data
• physicians – rates updated as already provided for by law
• long-term acute-care hospitals – a two percent increase
• inpatient rehabilitation facilities – a five percent rate reduction
• skilled nursing facilities – no rate increase
• dialysis facilities – rates updated as already provided for by law
• hospice services – no rate increase and the aggregate hospice cap should be wage-adjusted and reduced 20 percent
• home health agencies – a seven percent rate reduction

While …

Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of Medicare payment issues.

The issues on MedPAC’s March agenda were:

• Addressing Medicare Shared Savings Program vulnerabilities
• The role of specialists in alternative payment models and accountable care organizations
• Realigning incentives in Medicare Part D
• Redesigning the Medicare Advantage quality bonus program
• Mandated report: Impact of changes in the 21st Century Cures Act to risk adjustment for Medicare Advantage enrollees
• Improving Medicare’s end-stage renal disease prospective payment system
• Separately payable drugs in the hospital outpatient prospective payment system

MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues involving the Medicare program.  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.…

Hospitals do not prescribe more expensive drugs because they know the 340B program will help pay for them.

That is the conclusion drawn in a recent analysis by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

Prescription drug spending has risen markedly in recent years and the pharmaceutical industry maintains that part of that increase can be attributed to hospitals that participate in the section 340B prescription drug discount program, which requires pharmaceutical companies to give discounts to hospitals and other selected providers that care for especially large numbers of low-income patients.

A new analysis by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, however, concludes that any such effect is minimal.

340B discounts are available for qualified patients receiving drugs on an outpatient basis, and the program’s greatest costs are associated with drugs to treat cancer.  MedPAC found that prescribing decisions “appears to be specific to the type of cancer” and concluded that “…we are unable to attribute these findings to incentives created by 340B discounts” and that “Overall effects on cost sharing for cancer patients is likely to be small, if any, depending on cancer and the patient’s supplemental coverage.”

MedPAC warns that the empirical evidence underlying its analysis was limited.

Learn more about …

Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of Medicare payment issues.

The issues on MedPAC’s January agenda were:

• The Medicare prescription drug program (Part D):  status report and options for restructuring
• Redesigning the Medicare Advantage quality program:  initial modeling of a value incentive program
• Hospital inpatient and outpatient payments
• Physician payments
• Outpatient dialysis payments
• Skilled nursing facility, home health, inpatient rehabilitation facility, and long-term-care hospital payments
• Hospice and ambulatory surgery center payments
• The 340B program
• ACO beneficiary assignment

MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues involving the Medicare program.  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.…