Excitement, hospitals and clinicians! MedPAC wants Congress to increase his 2o24 Medicare payment rate for the sector.
Important reasons: If Congress decides not to do so, CMS will have to make the update in accordance with current law. Seeking Relief From Medicare Cuts After the fact.
- Commissioners finalized draft payment recommendations for providers at a two-day marathon meeting this week. I listened to and summarized all of about 10 hours of discussion.
News promotion: MedPAC appears poised to recommend that Congress increase Medicare payments to hospitals by 1% above what is mandated by law.
- Commissioners generally support asking Congress to further increase the number of safety-net hospitals on top of that.
- MedPAC could also recommend higher salaries for clinicians, paid through the physician compensation schedule, and substantial increases for providers who care for low-income conventional Medicare patients. (Under current law, updates are not provided to providers paid through tariffs.)
Line spacing: MedPAC discourages hospital and clinician salary increases. The 2024 draft recommendations factor in higher input costs, staff said during the meeting.
- But increasing Medicare payments requires new Medicare spending. This is a difficult thing to sell to Congress as a Medicare Part A trust fund. close to bankruptcy.
Opposite side: Skilled nursing facilities face a less than optimistic outlook. In MedPAC’s draft, he asks Congress to cut SNF’s Medicare base payment by 3% in 2024, compared to the 2023 rate.
- The commissioner acknowledged that the nursing home industry has had a tough few years. However, given his MedPAC mandate to examine access to care, quality of care, availability of capital, and costs of health care providers within the sector, they largely supported the recommendations.
- MedPAC chair Michael Chernew said at the conference, “It doesn’t indicate that the sector is healthy in the long run.” I am exercising.”
detail: MedPAC also discussed Medicare payment recommendations for other provider types at the conference.
- Home health: Congress should cut the base salary by 7%.
- Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility: Congress should cut the base salary by 3%.
- Outpatient Dialysis Center: Congress must update base salaries by current law. This equates to an increase of approximately 1.5%.
- hospice: Legislature must update the base salary by current law, but must adjust the total cap each hospice provider can receive and cut it by 20%.
What’s next: MedPAC will vote on the recommendations in January, after staff made some changes based on the Commissioner’s feedback. After that, MedPAC he will submit an official recommendation to Congress in March.
- Chernew said at Thursday’s MedPAC session: “will [Congress] do it? The problems they face are many and I don’t hesitate to speculate as to how this will unfold. “
