As a part of its mandate from Congress, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) released its June 2018 Report to the Congress: Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System, which reports on refinements to Medicare payment systems and issues affecting the Medicare program.
Included in the report is the commission’s recent recommendation to reduce emergency department (ED) evaluation and management services payment rates by 30 percent for off-campus stand-alone EDs located within six miles of an on-campus hospital ED.
The report also includes a recommendation to allow isolated rural hospitals located more than 35 miles from another ED to convert to stand-alone EDs that would be able to bill under the outpatient prospective payment system. These EDs also would be provided with annual payments to assist with their fixed costs. In addition, the report includes a mandated report on the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program and recommends changes related to post-acute care payment, quality reporting programs, accountable care organizations and other areas.
An accompanying fact sheet for the report can be read here.
