Medicare

MedPAC: New Medicare Post-Acute Payment System Needed – Soon

Medicare should implement a unified, site-neutral payment system for post-acute care as soon as 2021, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has decided. Current efforts to develop and implement such a system should be accelerated, Congress’s advisors on Medicare payment issues decided. While MedPAC’s recommendations are not binding, they are highly respected by Congress and federal regulators and often find their way into new public policy. MedPAC will present its latest recommendations to Congress in June. For more information about MedPAC’s position on post-acute-care payments, see this article in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.

iqtsupport2017-04-13T06:00:37-04:00April 13, 2017|Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, MedPAC|

MedPAC Meets

The Medicare Payment Advisory Committee met last week in Washington, D.C. On the MedPAC agenda were the following issues: Part B drug payment policy issues using premium support in Medicare implementing a unified payment system for post-acute care an overview of the medical device industry regional variation in Medicare Part A, Part B, and Part D spending and service use measuring low-value care in Medicare payment and plan incentives in Part D the role of Medicare policy in provider consolidation Find the issue briefs and presentations that supported MedPAC commissioners’ discussion of these issues here and find a transcript of [...]

iqtsupport2017-04-12T11:49:58-04:00April 12, 2017|Medicare, MedPAC|

CMS Shares Evaluation of Medicare-Medicaid Financial Alignment Efforts

In 2011 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched a “Medicare-Medicaid Financial Alignment Initiative” that seeks “…to provide Medicare-Medicaid enrollees with a better care experience and to better align the financial incentives of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.” How is that initiative working so far? CMS recently released three reports that evaluate different aspects of the program. Those reports are: “Early Findings on Care Coordination in Capitated Medicare-Medicaid Plans under the Financial Alignment Initiative” “Beneficiary Experience: Early Findings from Focus Groups with Enrollees Participating in the Financial Alignment Initiative” “Issue Brief: Special Populations Enrolled in Demonstrations under the Financial [...]

iqtsupport2017-03-29T06:00:30-04:00March 29, 2017|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Medicaid, Medicare|

Temporarily Gone But Not Forgotten

While last week’s withdrawal of the American Health Care Act at least temporarily halted talk of immediate repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, at least one aspect of that proposed legislation, often discussed in the past, is sure to arise in the future as well: replacing the current manner in which the federal government matches state Medicaid funding with Medicaid per capita limits or Medicaid block grants. In a new issue brief, the Kaiser Family Foundation examines how a switch to per capita limits or block grants might affect low-income seniors served by both Medicare and Medicaid. Among [...]

iqtsupport2017-03-29T06:00:07-04:00March 29, 2017|Medicaid, Medicare|

MedPAC Offers Provider Rate Recommendations for FY 2018

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has submitted its annual Medicare payment rate recommendations to Congress. The recommendations, required by law, include: rate increases as required by current law for hospital inpatient payments, hospital outpatient payments, physicians, other health professional services, and outpatient dialysis payments; no updates for ambulatory surgical centers, skilled nursing facilities, long-term-care hospitals, and hospices; and five percent rate reductions for home health agencies and inpatient rehabilitation facilities. MedPAC continued its past practice of recommending reform of the manner in which Medicare pays for post-acute-care services, maintaining that the unified payment system it has proposed would save $30 [...]

iqtsupport2017-03-22T06:00:14-04:00March 22, 2017|Medicare, MedPAC|

MedPAC Discusses Post-Acute Payment Issues

At their public meeting last week, members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission discussed two important issues involving how Medicare pays for post-acute-care services. First, MedPAC members suggested that implementation of a new, unified, site-neutral payment system for post-acute care, mandated by the 2014 Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act (IMPACT), could be completed well before the legislation’s target date of 2024. Commissioners discussed the possibility of Medicare introducing such a new system, perhaps by phasing it in over a period of years, beginning in 2021. MedPAC commissioners also discussed recommending to Congress that it reduce Medicare payments for post-acute-care [...]

iqtsupport2017-03-09T06:00:15-05:00March 9, 2017|Medicare, MedPAC|

MedPAC Meets, Discusses Issues

Members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met for two days last week in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of policy issues important to health care providers. Among those issues were: a unified payment system for post-acute care hospital and skilled nursing facility use by Medicare beneficiaries who reside in nursing homes refining merit-based incentive payment systems (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Systems (A-APMs) to encourage primary care Go here to see the issue briefs and presentations used to guide MedPAC commissioners’ deliberations.

iqtsupport2017-03-06T09:50:19-05:00March 6, 2017|Medicare, MedPAC|

New Study Finds Bundled Payments Reduces Costs, Improves Care

A new study has concluded that the bundled payments programs being tested by Medicare reduce health care costs while improving the quality of care. The study covered Medicare Bundled Payment for Care Improvement (BPCI) results for the past four years and includes the Medicare hip and knee replacement bundled care program. And contrary to another recent study, this report did not find any increase in the volume of procedures during the study period. To learn more about the study’s methodology and findings, go here to read “Debunking the Argument that the Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Program (BPCI) Contributed to [...]

iqtsupport2017-02-16T16:05:06-05:00February 16, 2017|Medicare|

Group Seeks Preservation, Reform of Federal Innovation Efforts

A coalition of 35 patient, physician, and hospital groups has written to new Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price and asked him to continue the federal government’s exploration of new ways to deliver and pay for Medicare services but to seek certain improvements in how those efforts are undertaken. The coalition Healthcare Leaders for Accountable Innovation in Medicare asked Secretary Price for a reformed Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation so that it operates with … appropriately-scaled, time-limited demonstration projects, greater transparency, improved data-sharing, and broader collaboration with the private sector. The coalition also called for CMMI to [...]

iqtsupport2017-02-16T13:00:11-05:00February 16, 2017|Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, CMMI, Medicare|

Serving High-Need, High-Cost Medicare Patients

With Medicare beneficiaries who have four or more chronic conditions accounting for 90 percent of Medicare hospital readmissions and 74 percent of Medicare costs (both 2010 figures), policy-makers are constantly looking for better ways to serve such individuals. Academic research suggests that these beneficiaries need a variety of non-medical social interventions and supports, most of which are not covered by Medicare. With this in mind, the Bipartisan Policy Center has prepared a review of current regulatory, payment, and other barriers that prevent providers and insurers from meeting some of the non-medical needs of high-need, high-cost patients that result in such [...]

iqtsupport2017-02-15T06:00:53-05:00February 15, 2017|Accountable Care Organization, ACO, Medicare|