CMS announced that skilled nursing facilities (SNF) would receive an $800 million Medicare payment increase under a proposed rule for FY 2017. The proposed 2.1% rate increase, which is attributable to a 2.6% market basket increase minus a 0.5% percentage point adjustment for multifactor productivity, nearly doubles the 1.2%/$430 million Medicare payment increase SNFs received in FY 2016.
The proposed rule also includes the creation of a SNF value-based purchasing (VBP) program beginning in FY 2019 and four new quality and resource use measures that were mandated under the Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014. The proposed VBP provisions, which would tie SNF payments to performance measures, include a previously-announced 30-day potentially preventable hospital readmission measure which would begin in 2019.
The new quality measures, which would include discharge to community and Medicare spending per beneficiary, would go into effect in FY 2018 under the proposed rule. A proposed drug regimen review quality measure looks to a FY 2020 effective date.
The rule was scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Monday (April 25th) but is currently available online in PDF format at: http://federalregister.gov/a/2016-09399.