SNF VBP Baseline Performance Data: What Does it Mean?
Do you know what your calendar year (CY) 2015 30-day rehospitalization rate was? The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published this data, which you need to know as part of the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing (SNF VBP) program. Your center’s 2015 rehospitalization data is important because improvements made between CY 2016 and CY 2017 will be used to determine your Medicare incentive payment beginning October 1, 2018.
To find your SNF’s performance on the Skilled Nursing Facility Readmission Measure (NQF# 2510) from Calendar Year (CY) 2015, use this file posted by CMS: Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing (SNF VBP) Baseline Performance Data (October 2017).
CMS will begin to cut all SNF Medicare Part A rates on October 1, 2018. The cuts will fund an incentive payment pool that can be earned back based on a center’s rehospitalization rate in CY 2017 or its improvement rate between CY 2015 and CY 2017 using an all-cause measure to identify rehospitalizations within 30 days of admission to a SNF. CMS is currently collecting readmission performance rates for stays between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017 and will compare the rate with CY 2015 for improvement.
Please note, CMS has decided to shift away from using calendar year (CY) data to fiscal year (FY) data. (Calendar years run January 1 to December 31. The federal fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30.) The agency is capturing readmission data from the first quarter of FY 2018 (October 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018) to determine the Medicare payment cuts that will take effect in FY 2019 and 2020 (i.e., October 1, 2018 – September 30, 2020).
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