Skilled nursing operators will not benefit from the Merit-Based Incentive Payment system under a new federal final rule issued in November.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a new Physician Fee Schedule that provides for everything from telehealth to physician evaluation, but nursing homes were left out.
Cynthia Morton, executive vice president of the National Association for the Support of Long Term Care, expressed dismay at the exclusion.
“We are very concerned about the curt statement CMS makes in the rule that SNFs won’t be eligible for MIPS,” Morton said.
Excluding skilled nursing “makes no sense,” she added, because the omission would keep the field from receiving a Part B payment update each year.
MIPS is one of the two pathways for providers to be paid under Part B, as governed by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act. There had been hopes that facility-based outpatient therapy could be treated under MIPS, Morton said.
“Instead of taking our ideas under advisement, CMS very briefly states in the Final Rule that SNFs won’t be eligible for MIPS because of claim limitations,” she noted.
But Morton added there is one bright spot for providers under the rule: On Jan. 1, CMS will remove functional status reporting requirements for outpatient therapy, which date back to 2013. Such reporting has been a “burden” to the field for years, with no standardization in the process.
The final rule also opens up the door for further use of telemedicine, and improving interoperability among providers, moves that industry advocates applaud.
From the December 2018 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
