Prospective Payment Assessment Commission

The Prospective Payment Assessment Commission (ProPAC) was created by Congress in 1986 to participate in setting and updating the DRG rates. ProPAC was comprised of 17 experts in health care delivery, finance, and research who were appointed by the Director of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. ProPAC was given the responsibility to evaluate the performance of the executive and legislative branch on the management of the Physicians Fee Schedule. ProPAC’s two statutory responsibilities were to recommend: mechanisms for updating hospital payment rates to the Secretary of HHS, and necessary changes in DRGs including the advisability of establishing new DRGs, modifying existing ones, or changing the relative weights. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 required the Comptroller General to terminate ProPAC and merge its statutory duties along with those of the Physician Payment Review Commission into the newly-establishment Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). Source: https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-09-00-00200.pdf