The Patient Driven Patient Model had not caused much disruption among Sabra Health Care REIT’s skilled nursing operators as of press time, according to CEO and Chairman Rick Matros.
Executives for the California-based real estate investment trust said the company has been pleased with the improvements since PDPM’s implementation in October.
“As they make more progress on stabilizing those cost reductions [as related to therapy changes], we’ll have a much better sense of how the combination of the rate increase and cost reductions go to improving coverage,” Matros said during a fourth-quarter earnings call in February.
He also doesn’t expect a clawback from CMS regarding the new reimbursement system, adding that he doesn’t expect to see many operators taking advantage of the new model.
“We’re seeing a much slower and lower gravitation and percentage of concurrent and group therapy than might’ve been anticipated, given the opportunities to go to 25 percent,” he said, “and I expect we’re going to see that pretty much across the board. You’re always going to have operators here and there, and if they’re doing something that’s egregious, then let those specific operators pay for it.”
Matros noted that it’s still too early to make any final conclusions about PDPM. If there is no clawback movement, he said, there could be administrative payment adjustments moving forward.
“We’re not at a point where we could publish a snapshot, but I would say through the fourth quarter of 2019 we’re seeing rate growth net of the market basket with mid-single digits pretty much across the board,” Matros explained. “Once we have some more data points, we will be able to provide a snapshot on how that impacts coverage.”
