Nursing home operators are generally pleased with the announcement that they will receive a 2.2% Medicare pay boost for fiscal 2021.
The rate was announced July 31 and reflects a 0.1% drop from the net 2.3% market basket update originally proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on April 10.
The increase will inject an additional $750 million into the skilled nursing facility funding stream beginning Oct. 1, 2020, the start of the new fiscal year.
The original CMS proposal would have given nursing homes a 2.3% ($784 million) net Medicare increase. That would have been the byproduct of a 2.7% market basket increase, less a 0.4% reduction for multifactor productivity adjustment. The new figures reflect a straight market basket raise.
Providers say a healthy pay increase is needed to contend with what have been triple-digit price increases for some safety equipment and double-digit staffing cost increases since the pandemic was declared in March.
Due to the COVID-19 crisis, CMS also announced that it has limited annual SNF rulemaking required by statute to essential policies including Medicare payment to SNFs. Providers had appealed to the agency in a June 9 letter for extra consideration due to coronavirus burdens.
From the September 2020 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
