Price increases, not a larger senior population, are responsible for exploding healthcare costs: ana

Skilled nursing facilities will see their federal payments rise an expected 1%, or $370 million, in fiscal year 2018, according to a payment rule posted Monday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

That 1% increase was mandated for all post-acute care providers by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which providers called “unfortunate but expected” when the FY 2018 rule was first proposed in April.

The new rule also finalizes previously proposed updates to the SNF Quality Reporting Program, including replacing the current pressure ulcer measure with a new version and introducing four new functional status measures. Those functional measures — change in self-care score, change in mobility score, discharge self-care score and discharge mobility score — will take effect in FY 2020.

CMS also finalized that data on the following measures will be publicly reported by fall 2018:

  • Application of Percent of Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Patients With an Admission and Discharge Functional Assessment and a Care Plan That Addresses Function
  • Percent of Residents or Patients with Pressure Ulcers That Are New or Worsened
  • Application of Percent of Residents Experiencing One or More Falls with Major Injury
  • Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary
  • Discharge to Community
  • Potentially Preventable 30-Day Post-Discharge Readmission Measure

To read the full final rule, which also includes provisions on the End-Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program and the SNF Value-Based Purchasing Program, click here.