The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF) final rule (CMA-1737-F) on July 31, 2020 for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency and limited time for providers to review and comment, CMS limited their rulemaking to essential policies including Medicare payments to SNFs. 

The final rule includes routine technical rate-setting updates to the SNF prospective payment system (PPS) payment rates, and adopts the revised Office of Management and Budget (OMB) statistical area delineations. It also finalizes changes to the International Classification of Diseases, Version 10 (ICD-10) code mappings, effective October 1, 2020. Finally, this rule includes minor administrative changes related to the SNF Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program.

CMS projects that aggregate Medicare program payments to SNFs will increase by $750 million, or 2.2 percent, for FY 2021 compared to FY 2020.  This increase is attributable to a 2.2% market basket increase factor.

CMS is updating the SNF VBP Program 30-day Phase One Review and Correction deadline for the baseline period quality measure quarterly report.  CMS is also announcing performance periods and performance standards for the FY 2023 program year. CMS made no changes to the measures, SNF VBP scoring policies, or payment policies.

CMS has released a fact sheet that contains more details.  The fact sheet can be found here. 

Questions?

Contact: 

David Carter | Director, Health Care Finance & Policy

C 360.888.5702