MedPAC March 2012 Report to Congress-AOTA Analysis
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has released its March 2012 Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy.
MedPAC is an independent agency established to advise Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program, though Congress is not obligated to adopt every recommendation. MedPAC releases two reports, in March and June each year, on their program recommendations. Notably, the March 2012 Report includes the following recommendations regarding skilled nursing facilities (SNFs):
- The Congress should eliminate the market basket update for 2013.
- The Congress should direct the Secretary to revise the skilled nursing facility payment system to redistribute payments away from intensive therapy care that is unrelated to patient care needs and toward medically-complex care. (First recommended in June 2008).
- The Congress should direct the Secretary to begin a rebasing of payments in 2014 with an initial reduction of 4 percent and subsequent reductions over an appropriate transition until Medicare’s payments are better aligned with providers’ costs.
- The Congress should direct the Secretary to reduce payments to skilled nursing facilities with relatively high risk-adjusted rates of rehospitalization during Medicare-covered stays and be expanded to include a time period after discharge from the facility.
AOTA staff are analyzing the Report.
Resources:
MedPAC Report (see: Chapter 3 for inpatient and outpatient services; Chapter 7 for SNF, Chapter 8 for Home Health, Chapter 9 for Inpatient Rehabilitation, Chapter 10 for LTC; Chapter 11 for Hospice)
Executive summary
Fact sheet on MedPAC’s 2012 Report to the Congress
Fact sheet on MedPAC’s October 2011 letter to the Congress on the Medicare sustainable growth rate system
