Alan Rosenbloom, president of the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care

Despite pleas from the long-term care community, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is tentatively recommending a 0% market-basket update for skilled nursing facilities for fiscal year 2012. 

It also may recommend that market-basket reimbursements remain flat for long-term care hospitals and inpatient rehabilitation facilities. MedPAC’s draft recommendations may be revised before the commission votes on them in January.

The American Health Care Association and Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care last week urged MedPAC, the Medicare advisory arm to Congress, to issue an update. Funding pressures placed on Medicare and Medicaid have reduced facilities’ resources-base, ACHA President Bruce Yarwood and Alliance President Alan G. Rosenbloom said in a statement.