August 11, 2009

Medicare Program: Prospective Payment System & Consolidated Billing for Skilled Nursing Facilities for FY 2010

This document, from the Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, entitled "Medicare Program: Prospective Payment System & Consolidated Billing for Skilled Nursing Facilities for FY 2010," shows readers the updated payment rates used under the prospective payment system (PPS) for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), for fiscal year (FY) 2010. In addition, it recalibrates the case-mix indexes so that they more accurately reflect parity in expenditures related to the implementation of case-mix refinements January 2006. It also discusses the results of DHHS' ongoing analysis of nursing home staff time measurement data collected in the Staff Time and Resource Intensity Verification project, as well as a new Resource Utilization Groups, version 4 case-mix classification model for FY 2011 that will use the updated Minimum Data Set 3.0 resident assessment for case-mix classification. In addition, this final rule discusses the public comments that we have received on these and other issues, including a possible requirement for the quarterly reporting of nursing home staffing data, as well as on applying the quality monitoring mechanism in place for all other SNF PPS facilities to rural swing-b d hospitals. Finally, this final rule revises the regulations to incorporate certain technical corrections.