Long-term care operators’ attention will be turning to their lobbyists and legislators, with hope that some sort of further adjustment can be made regarding this fall’s planned rollout of the MDS 3.0 resident assessment system with only part of the companion payment grouping system. Recently passed healthcare reform delays the implementation of a bulk of the new resource utilization group system (RUGs IV), even though it was designed to operate in tandem with MDS 3.0. A Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services representative heavily implied Thursday that agency directors would be strongly in favor of rolling out both programs at the same time, as originally intended.
