In 2017, MACPAC published an issue brief that presented an inpatient hospital payment index comparing Medicaid inpatient hospital fee-for-service payment across states and to Medicare. Staff presented our work to update the inpatient hospital index to utilize new data sources from 2022 and include managed care spending.
MACPAC discussed the assumptions and adjustments made to calculate total payments, including base, supplemental, and state directed payments, and to estimate net payments after accounting for provider financing of the non-federal share. In this session, the analysis focused on a comparison of inpatient hospital payment levels across states and relative to the national average. MACPAC plans to present a comparison of Medicaid inpatient hospital payment to Medicare at a subsequent meeting.