Tag: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission

MedPAC Examines Alternative Wage Index Model for Medicare Providers

At its March 2023 meeting, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) continued its discussion of concerns related to the current wage index model in use by Medicare for various provider payments, including home health and hospice.  In addition to discussion of the current model’s shortcomings, MedPAC staff put forth an alternative wage index model as…

MedPAC Preliminarily Approves Update with Cap Cut Recommendation

On Thursday, December 8 and 9, 2022, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) met to discuss proposed Medicare payment recommendations for the 2024 payment year to be included in its March 2023 Report to Congress.  In contrast with its recommendations for the past three years — which included no annual update to the base payment…

MedPAC Calls for 7 Percent Home Health Rate Cut

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) discussed a proposal to reduce the 2023 Medicare base payment rate for home health agencies by seven percent, during the commission’s annual December meeting. MedPAC staff presented to Commisioners information and recommendations from the 2021 benefit data, including the following points: Medicare margins for 2021 were 24.9 percent; All-payer margin in…

PDGM Under Scrutiny at MedPAC Meeting

Some Commissioners lament base payment rate The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) met to discuss the development of a mandated report assessing the impact of the shift to the PDGM payment model for Medicare Home Health, and in particular the 30-day episode and the removal of therapy utilization in payment determinations. According to MedPAC staff,…

MedPAC Tees Up Hospice Freeze and Aggregate Cap Cut for FY2022 Recommendations

Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) reviewed the latest available data on Medicare hospice utilization and discussed potential hospice payment recommendations for FY2022 with an eye toward their inclusion in the annual March Report to Congress.   Commission members expressed preliminary support for inclusion of the following recommendations: For fiscal year 2022, eliminate…

MedPAC Opposes Episode-Based Payment for Post-Acute, For Now

On March 8, 2019 the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) panel concluded that a unified payment system for post-acute care facilities should be based on each patient stay and not the entire episode of care. The discussion among commission members focused on how to create a unified prospective payment system to make Medicare fee-for-service payments…