The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a final rule to update the Medicare fee-for-service home health (HH) prospective payment system (PPS) effective Jan. 1, 2023. Key provisions include:
- A net 1.0% decrease in the national 30-day standardized payment amount from $2,031.64 to $2,010.69 after budget neutrality adjustments, compared to the proposed 6.25% decrease. HHs that fail to comply with HH quality reporting program requirements are subject to a two percentage point reduction and are subject to a rate of $1,972.02.
- A seven percentage point cut to all payments to achieve budget-neutrality for the Patient-Driven Groupings Model phased in over two years, with a 3.5 percentage point cut in 2023 and 2024.
- A permanent 5% cap on wage index decreases.
- Required submission of patient assessment data on all patients, regardless of payer, with a phased approach beginning Jan. 1, 2025, instead of 2024 as proposed.
- Changes to the Expanded HH value-based purchasing model, including definitions for the baseline and model year and changing the baseline year for the 2023 program year to 2022 to use the most recently available data.
The MHA will provide members with an updated impact analysis and additional details of the final rule within the next few weeks. Members that have not received impact analyses in the past for affiliated, free-standing HH agencies are encouraged to provide the agency’s CMS certification number (also known as Medicare provider number), agency name and federal information processing standards code in order to receive an estimated impact analysis in the future.
Members with questions should contact Vickie Kunz at the MHA.