The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has issued its annual report and recommendations to Congress.
The major issues addressed in the report include:
- implementing a unified payment system for post-acute care
- reforming Medicare payment for drugs under Part B
- redesigning the merit-based incentive payment system (MIPS) and strengthening advanced alternative payment models
- using premium support for Medicare
- the relationship between clinician services and other Medicare services
- payments from drug and device manufacturers to physicians and teaching hospitals in 2015
- the medical device industry
- stand-alone emergency departments
- hospital and skilled nursing facility use by Medicare beneficiaries who reside in nursing facilities
- the role of Medicare policy in provider consolidation
To learn more about MedPAC’s annual report to Congress, see this MedPAC news release, this fact sheet, and the report itself.