Monday, March 18, 2019

Very Brief Blog: MEDPAC Proposes Revamp, Simplification of Inpatient Measures

Last week MedPAC released its 530-page annual March Report to Congress and the public on CMS payment policy.    See press release here, full report here.

Let's draw attention to a special chapter proposing to radically simplify Medicare's inpatient hospital metrics

Four programs would be rolled into one.   Unlike MIPS - the physician metric "simplification" that mostly just wrapped a lot of tape around the diverse existing programs - this inpatient program rolls up existing measures, rewards, and penalties, but also proposes a great deal of simplification as well. 

Go straight to the inpatient measures chapter here.    I think this will have a lot of influence because it's so well aligned with what CMS/HHS wants to do anyway.   Recall that CMS spent last April's inpatient rulemaking in throwing overboard a lot of measures and creating few if any new ones.

click to enlarge