The technical advisory panel for the Medicare trustee reports plans to meet Jan. 10 and Jan. 28 to discuss the actuarial and economic assumptions and methods that the trustees use to measure health spending.
The trustees are the people who are predicting that the Medicare hospitalization plan trust fund will soon be insolvent.
The officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who wrote the Medicare trustees advisory panel meetings notice, which appeared in the Federal Register Wednesday, have tried to cool health care provider and consumer expectations about the meetings by suggesting that they will be boring and aimed mainly at bean counters.
"The Panel's discussion is expected to be very technical in nature and will focus on the actuarial and economic assumptions and methods by which Trustees might more accurately measure health spending," officials warn in an early version of the notice.
The panel is not expected to talk about changes in Medicare provider payment rates or coverage policies, officials add.
Members of the public can observe the meetings, but the panel will not hear public comments during the meetings, officials say.
- Allison Bell
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