The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services late today issued a proposed rule to update skilled nursing facility payment rates for fiscal year 2022. The rule would update payments by a net 1.3% relative to FY 2021 ($444 million), which includes a 2.3% market basket, a 0.2 percentage point productivity reduction and a forecast error adjustment to account for prior overpayment. CMS also would update the diagnosis code mappings used in the case-mix system implemented in FY 2021, and rebase and revise the SNF market basket. 

CMS also proposes to adopt two new quality measures beginning in FY 2023. One would assess the rate of COVID-19 vaccination among health care personnel, and the other would calculate healthcare-associated infections acquired in SNFs based on claims for subsequent hospitalizations. For the SNF Value-based Purchasing program, CMS proposes to suppress data for the single measure used in that program due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and instead will issue a uniform 1.2% payback percentage to participating SNFs with sufficient case volume rather than determining payment adjustments based on performance.

Comments on this rule are due to CMS by June 7.
 

Related News Articles

Headline
The U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island Sept. 30 denied motions from AbbVie and Novartis seeking a preliminary injunction against the state’s…
Headline
The anticipated burdens on hospitals to comply with the Health Resources and Services Administration’s 340B Rebate Pilot Program far exceed the agency’s…
Headline
Ashley Thompson, AHA senior vice president of public policy analysis and development, participated in a panel discussion during Modern Healthcare's Leadership…
Headline
The U.S. District Court for the District of Maine today issued an order denying preliminary injunctions requested by AbbVie and Novartis in legal challenges…
Headline
The AHA commented Sept. 15 on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services calendar year 2026 outpatient prospective payment system and ambulatory surgical…
Headline
The AHA Sept. 15 urged Aetna to rescind its recently announced “level of severity inpatient payment” policy, saying that it “could erode the transparency…