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Medicare News
Medicare Commission Wants Independent Research on
Services
Also calls for reducing confusion on drugs covered in
Part D
April 16, 2007 - The
Medicare Payment
Advisory Commission on Thursday voted to include a
recommendation in a June report to Congress that lawmakers "charge an
independent entity to sponsor credible research on comparative
effectiveness of health care services and disseminate this information
to patients, providers and public and private payers,"
CQ HealthBeat
reports.
MedPAC also voted to include a recommendation that
lawmakers seek to reduce confusion about whether certain medications are
covered by Part D or Part B of Medicare, a problem that can delay access
for beneficiaries.
Under the recommendation, lawmakers should
encourage Medicare to "identify certain overlap drugs and direct plans
to always cover them under Part D" and should allow prescription drug
plans to cover a "transitional supply" of such medications under certain
conditions until a final decision is made about whether they are covered
under Part D or Part B. Lawmakers also "should permit coverage for
appropriate preventive vaccines under Part B instead of Part D" (Reichard,
CQ HealthBeat, 4/13).
MedPAC twice annually issues a report to Congress
on recommended revisions to Medicare reimbursement policy.
In addition, MedPAC voted to include a
recommendation that lawmakers implement a new method to calculate
reimbursements to hospitals for labor costs.
The new method, which would reduce the geographic
variations in the wage index used by Medicare, would use data submitted
from "all employers and industry-specific occupational weights," rather
than data submitted by hospitals. Medicare would implement the new
method, which would calculate wage index values by county, over time to
ensure "large changes in wage index values are phased in over a
transition period."
MedPAC recommended the use of the new method to
calculate reimbursements to skilled nursing facilities and home health
agencies for labor costs and the review of the method by the
HHS
secretary for use in other Medicare payment systems.
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