The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has
issued its annual report to Congress with recommendations
for updates to Medicare fee-for-service rates for 2020.
With regard to hospital services, MedPAC recommends that
Congress update Medicare inpatient and outpatient prospective
payment system (PPS) rates by 2% in 2020. MedPAC also
proposes a new hospital value incentive program (HVIP) to replace
Medicare's current inpatient hospital quality
programs.1 In short, the HVIP would include a
small set of population-based outcome, patient experience, and
value measures; score all hospitals based on the same
prospectively-set performance targets; and account for social risk
factors by distributing payment adjustments through peer
grouping. MedPAC believes the HVIP "will be simpler and
will produce more equitable results compared with existing quality
payment programs."
