04.22.2019

CMS Proposes Updated Funding, Medication Handoff Measures

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last week issued its proposed FY2020 inpatient rehabilitation facility prospective payment system rule. CMS proposes rebasing the market basket it uses to set reimbursements from 2016 as opposed to 2012, which means its projections are more up to date. Under the proposal, net payments for inpatient rehabs would increase by 2.3% relative to FY 2019.
 
In the rule, CMS proposes two new measures IRFs would need to report: 1) Transfer of Health Information to the Provider–Post-Acute Care (PAC), and 2) Transfer of Health Information to the Patient–PAC. The first measure assesses whether or not a current reconciled medication list is given to the subsequent provider when a patient is discharged or transferred from his or her current PAC setting. And the second measure assesses whether or not a medication list was provided to the patient, family, or caregiver when the patient was discharged from a PAC setting to a home, a group home, assisted living facility, hospice, or other such setting.