Skilled nursing providers will get a 2.4% Medicare pay raise Oct. 1 — far more than expected — and a simplified new resident classification system, much to their relief.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unveiled both moves in a blockbuster announcement April 27.
The market basket adjustment will mean a cumulative pay raise of about $850 million, starting Oct. 1.
The newly proposed Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) would start in 2019 and simplify RCS-1, which was floated for comment in March 2017.
“Great improvement” is how Cynthia Morton, executive vice president of the National Association for the Support of Long-Term Care, described PDPM.
Comments are being collected until June 26 on the new proposal, which may lighten therapist demand but was generally well received by provider analysts.
From the June 01, 2018 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News