UPDATE: The Fiscal Year 2023 Final Rule will be released soon and CMS is planning reimbursement cuts for SNFs despite an enormous amount of public comments voicing concerns & criticism against CMS’ planned cuts. SNF operators question CMS’ logic of cutting reimbursement to an industry still reeling from the pandemic, staffing shortages, and census challenges.
Skilled Nursing Facilities received unwelcomed news from CMS in the form of proposed Medicare Part A Reimbursement decreases. While many experts predicted that decreases were coming for Fiscal Year 2023, the SNF community is bracing for the ripple effect of negative outcomes. In most years, SNFs receive an increase in Medicare Part A reimbursement, even if it is modest.
Here are the details on the CMS FY 2023 Proposed Rule:
- The federal government has proposed a 4.6% payment cut related to the Patient-Driven Payment Model for FY 2023. Their reasoning is what they are referring to as “unintentional overpayments.”
- Also provided is a 3.9%, or $1.4 billion, payment increase.
- The net change is projected by CMS to be a decrease of $320 million.
Industry experts fear that Skilled Nursing Facilities still recovering from the Covid pandemic will be unable to absorb this decrease in Medicare Part A reimbursement. Last year, CMS provided a modest increase for FY 2022 but with a warning that cuts were likely in the future.
A 60-day comment period is now open for industry stakeholders to voice their opinions to CMS. The comment period goes through June 10th. New Medicare Part A rates are historically implemented in October.
Speech therapy is a critical component of Medicare Part A reimbursement for skilled nursing facilities due to the SLP component. Optimizing the SLP component can go a long way toward offsetting these potential losses.
