[4] Over the last decade, Congress has been passing legislation to temporarily fix the Medicare payment system to avoid the major cuts that would otherwise go into effect due to existing law.

[6] The bill would direct the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MEDPAC) to report to Congress on the relationship between: (1) physician and other health professional utilization and expenditures (and their rate of increase) of items and services for which Medicare payment is made, and (2) total utilization and expenditures (and their rate of increase) under Medicare parts A (Hospital Insurance), B (Supplementary Medical Insurance), and D (Voluntary Prescription Drug Benefit Program).

[6] The bill would require the Secretary to study: (1) the application of federal fraud prevention laws related to APMs; (2) the effect of individuals' socioeconomic status on quality and resource use outcome measures for individuals under Medicare; and (3) the impact of risk factors, race, health literacy, limited English proficiency (LEP), and patient activation, on quality and resource use outcome measures under Medicare.

[6] The bill would direct the Secretary to: (1) post on the CMS Internet website a draft plan for the development of quality measures to assess professionals, (2) establish new Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes for chronic care management services, and (3) conduct an education and outreach campaign to inform professionals who furnish items and services under Medicare part B and Medicare part B enrollees of the benefits of chronic care management services.

[6] The bill would direct the Secretary to: (1) make publicly available through an appropriate publicly accessible website information on the number and characteristics of opt-out physicians and practitioners, and (2) report to Congress recommendations to amend existing fraud and abuse laws, through exceptions, safe harbors, or other narrowly targeted provisions, to permit gainsharing or similar arrangements between physicians and hospitals that improve care while reducing waste and increasing efficiency.

[6] The bill would direct the Secretary to study the feasibility of establishing mechanisms that includes aggregated results of surveys of meaningful EHR users on the functionality of certified EHR products to enable such users to compare directly the functionality and other features of such products.

[6] The bill would require GAO studies on the use of telehealth under federal programs and on remote patient monitoring services.

[1] The SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014 was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on February 6, 2014 by Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-TX).

[8] The American Medical Association's president Ardis Dee Hoven argued strongly in favor of the bill, calling the current SGR "fiscally foolish" and "fatally-flawed.

[5] The proposal to pay for the expensive change to the Medicare payment system by delaying the individual mandate was made by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI).

According to the Administration's statement, Obama favored the changes to Medicare but objected to the bill's inclusion of provisions that would delay the individual mandate from the Affordable Care Act by five years.

[5] Democrats, such as House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), accused the Republicans of turning "bipartisan agreement into partisan confrontation.

"[11] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Government.