CMS Shares SNF QRP Questions and Answers

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a Questions and Answers document addressing issues that have been brought to the attention of the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Quality Reporting Program (QRP) help desk so far this year. SNF QRP was implemented on Oct. 1, 2016, and the document is intended to provide guidance on questions that were received by the help desk from January through March 2017 (section 1). The document also contains quarterly updates and events from January to March 2017 (Section 2) as well as information on upcoming updates for the next quarter, from April to June 2017 (Section 3). CMS notes that guidance contained in the document may be time-limited and may be superseded by guidance published at a later date.

SNF QRP requires homes to ensure that Medicare claims are filed timely to allow CMS to calculate claims-based measures and that MDS assessments data is timely and complete enough to allow all the assessment-based measures to be calculated from at least 80 percent of the assessments. Homes that fail to do so will face a 2 percent decrease in their Medicare payments beginning in October 2017. A helpful fact sheet on SNF QRP is available here.

Contact: Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8841