As part of its mandate from Congress, each June the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reports on Medicare payment systems and on issues affecting the Medicare program, including changes in health care delivery and the market for health care services. In this book, several issues are examined, including payments for physician services, the design of Medicare's traditional fee-for-service (FFS) benefit package and its impact on beneficiaries; Medicare's technical assistance to health care providers for quality improvement; improving co-ordination of the care of beneficiaries dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid and the variation in private-sector payment rates for services across and within markets.