Commission Recommendations
MedPAC makes recommendations to the Congress and to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on issues affecting the administration of the Medicare program. With its recommendations, the Commission strives to improve the delivery of care, while ensuring financial stability and maximizing value for the program. After extensive analysis and evaluation, our recommendations are discussed and voted on by Commissioners in our public meetings. Recommendations are typically published in two main reports, released in March and June of each year.
| Recommendations | Topic(s) | Date |
|---|---|---|
Reforming physician fee schedule updates and improving the accuracy of relative payment rates (2)The Congress should direct the Secretary to improve the accuracy of Medicare’s relative payment rates forclinician services by collecting and using timely data that reflect the costs of delivering care. |
|
June 2025 |
Reforming physician fee schedule updates and improving the accuracy of relative payment rates (1)The Congress should replace the current–law updates to the physician fee schedule with an annualupdate based on a portion of the growth in the Medicare Economic Index (MEI) (such as MEI minus1 percentage point). |
|
June 2025 |
Physician and other health professional servicesThe Congress should: |
|
March 2025 |
Physician and other health professional servicesThe Congress should: |
|
March 2024 |
Physician and other health professional services (1)For calendar year 2024, the Congress should update the 2023 Medicare base payment rate for physician and other health professional services by 50 percent of the projected increase in the Medicare Economic Index. |
|
March 2023 |
Physician and other health professional services (2)The Congress should enact a non-budget-neutral add-on payment, not subject to beneficiary cost sharing, under the physician fee schedule for services provided to low-income Medicare beneficiaries. These add-on payments should equal a clinician’s allowed charges for these beneficiaries multiplied by: |
|
March 2023 |
Physician and other health professional services (1)For calendar year 2023, the Congress should update the 2022 Medicare base payment rate for physician and other health professional services by the amount determined under current law. |
|
March 2022 |
Physician and other health professional services (2)The Secretary should require that clinicians use a claims modifier to identify audio-only telehealth services. |
|
March 2022 |
Physician and other health professional servicesFor calendar year 2022, the Congress should update the 2021 Medicare payment rates for physician and other health professional services by the amounts determined under current law. |
|
March 2021 |
Physician and other health professional servicesFor calendar year 2021, the Congress should increase the calendar year 2020 payment rates for physician and other health professional services by the amount specified in current law. |
|
March 2020 |