The new policy will change how Medicare reimburses skilled-nursing facilities, home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long-term-care hospitals, establishing rates according to specific patient conditions instead of the kind of post-acute-care setting hosting the beneficiary.HHS will have until 2022 to develop an actual pay prototype.
“A unified post-acute-care payment system will have the most adverse impact on inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long-term-care hospitals, according to a MedPAC analysis. That’s because many of the types of stays treated in these settings are also treated in lower-cost settings,” reported Modern Healthcare.
“Therefore, the predicted costs for these settings will be lower than their actual costs because the model will average out payment, MedPAC said. A transition period would give long-term-care hospitals and inpatient rehabilitation facilities time to adjust their costs.”
“Skilled-nursing facilities will benefit because payments would consider the medical complexity of patients often treated there.”
