The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission voted to recommend pay cuts to nursing homes, hospice services and others, drawing swift provider rebukes in January.
“Recommendations for payment adjustments that target
specific behaviors that run counter to policy goals, as opposed to blunt approaches of across-the-board cuts, is a direction that LeadingAge encourages MedPAC and Congress to consider,” the provider association said in a statement Jan. 16.
It said that eliminating the fiscal 2021 payment update is “in essence, a cut at a time of rising operating costs … that adds to nursing homes’ financial precariousness.”
Providers also noted that considering the Medicare funding stream alone is short-sighted since it counterbalances insufficient payments by Medicaid and other payment programs.
MedPAC researchers focused on 2018 data and found that payment adequacy indicators for access to care, quality of care, SNFs’ access to capital and Medicare payments, and SNF costs were all “positive.”
From the February 2020 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
