Medicare rules might have to be relaxed to give hospitals more say in where patients go for post-acute care, members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission proposed at a recent meeting in Washington, D.C. It’s likely that many hospitals already are “soft steering,” some commissioners said.
Medicare payments could be adjusted to reflect how hospice services tend to be more intensive at the beginning and end, according to findings recently published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Information Products & Data Analytics.
Skilled nursing facilities and inpatient rehabilitation facilities should receive equal payments for treating some conditions, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission proposed in its latest report to Congress.
Both houses of Congress now officially are considering bills to standardize assessments across various post-acute care provider types. The House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees introduced companion versions of the “Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014” Thursday, after releasing a draft in March.
The government should adjust Medicare payment policies to better support the type of care provided in hospital-based skilled nursing facilities, the American Hospital Association urged in a recent letter to a top healthcare official.
Proposed Medicare payment changes have put the nation’s largest long-term care association at odds with inpatient rehabilitation providers, and the two sides sought to sway legislators in advance of a Congressional hearing Wednesday.
Accountable care organizations should be able to place patients in skilled nursing facilities more quickly and communicate which SNFs are preferred providers, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission stated in a letter to a top government health official.
A funny thing happened on the way to a semi-annual eye rolling about a MedPAC report. It contained some information that could make long-term care providers happy.
Patients generally have better clinical outcomes and live longer if they are treated in an inpatient rehabilitation hospital rather than a skilled nursing facility, according to a study commissioned by the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association. The findings show why IRFs should be reimbursed at a higher Medicare rate than SNFs, the trade association argued when releasing the results Tuesday.
The chairman of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has urged a House committee to set lower Medicare Part B therapy spending caps.
