MedPAC to Congress: hold off on a single payment update, reveal COTS edits

Article Overview

This article covers MedPAC’s annual report to Congress on Medicare Part B payment policy, including its concerns about moving to a single update approach and its recommendations for further study of payment methods across physician, outpatient, and ambulatory surgery settings. It also discusses MedPAC’s call for greater transparency around commercial off-the-shelf coding edits and its support for pilot testing documentation guidelines with input from the medical community. The piece is relevant to Medicare payment policy stakeholders, physicians, coders, compliance staff, and health system leaders following federal guidance on reimbursement and coding oversight.