The American Hospital Association submitted a statement to the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee on May 18 detailing its position on Medicare payment provisions that face expiration in 2017, as well as other Medicare payment issues.
The AHA specifically expressed concern over a recommendation approved by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission for Congress to implement a common Medicare payment system for post-acute care providers by 2021 — more than four years ahead of the current timeline.
"While we appreciate the thoughtful work MedPAC has completed thus far on PAC PPS [post-acute care prospective payment system] development, it remains unclear how policymakers could eliminate four to five years from the IMPACT Act [Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014]'s timeline to build a PAC PPS and still produce an accurate and reliable payment system," the AHA said.
The IMPACT Act initially authorized the implementation of a common PAC PPS, and the policy development process is ongoing, according to the AHA. The recommendation for Congress to implement the PAC PPS by 2021 is the latest development in the process.
AHA elaborated further on its concerns about the timeline.
"Specifically, considering MedPAC's estimate that their truncated timeline would require the introduction of a proposal to Congress in 2018 or 2019, MedPAC staff should be called upon to articulate the currently planned policy development steps that could be eliminated to meet their truncated deadline, and explain how, in their view, the shorter process is feasible and would not affect the quality of the resulting PAC PPS policy," the AHA said.
Read the full statement here.