The American Health Care Association is again seeking change to a rule that requires an individual to spend three consecutive days as a hospital inpatient in order to receive Medicare skilled nursing coverage.
The provider campaign was revived after CMS Administrator Seema Verma tweeted on Aug. 4 that “Govt doesn’t always make sense. We’re listening to feedback” on the issue.
AHCA sent a letter Aug. 26, asking for elimination of the “confusing policy barrier that each year needlessly prevents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries from accessing their benefit to high quality, post-acute care.
“CMS can fix this problem immediately by recognizing observation stays as qualifying stays for the purposes of the three-day stay requirement,” association leaders wrote.
CMS has the authority to define inpatient care and has already set a precedent allowing certain hospital stays to count toward qualifying a patient for SNF coverage, the nursing home lobbying group asserted.
From the October 2019 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
