The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is considering a draft recommendation that would bump up hospital payments in fiscal year 2012 by 2.6 percent. That full "market basket" update would be counterbalanced by a 1.6 percent reduction to reflect mandatory offsets for presumably improved coding and documentation processes, making the overall payment increase only 1 percent. The recommendation was made at MedPAC's regular public meeting in Washington last week, and was presented by commission chair Glenn Hackbarth, who stressed that the proposal was his alone. -- Read the full article at FierceHealthFinance