Nursing home providers were pleased to learn in mid-April about a proposed 2.3% Medicare pay hike for fiscal 2021.
“With an all-in margin of negative-0.3 percent, there are still real challenges for skilled nursing providers. However, this increase gets us headed in the right direction,” Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, said in a prepared statement.
The boost, which would amount to an aggregate $784 million, would start Oct. 1, 2020, the start of the 2021 fiscal year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The proposed pay rate increase is 2.7% for the market basket update, but that is to be offset by a 0.4% reduction for multifactor productivity adjustment.
CMS also said it wants to apply a 5% cap to wage index increases. That will be informed by revised geographic delineations used to identify a provider’s status as an urban or rural facility.
ICD-10 code mapping also would be changed slightly under the Patient Driven Payment Model, the agency said in announcing the proposals.
In addition, the rule includes minor administrative proposals related to the SNF [Skilled Nursing Facility] Value-Based Purchasing Program, the agency said. Specifically, CMS hopes to align text with previously finalized policies in order to apply the 30-day Phase One Review and Correction deadline to the baseline period quality measure quarterly report, “and to establish performance periods and performance standards for upcoming program years.”
The agency is not proposing any changes to the measures, SNF VBP scoring policies or payment policies.
