Medicare Now Requires Reporting Of Social Determinants Screening Results

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) adopted the first-ever set of measures related to screening social determinants of health (SDOH) to monitor health equity. The measures were included in the Medicare 2023 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) long-term care hospital (LTCH) final rule effective October 1, 2022. While the measures are already used by hospitals that participate in Medicare, the 2023 IPPS now requires hospitals to report the share of the population screened for SDOH needs and how many screen positive in each category. Voluntary reporting starts in calendar year (CY) 2023, and mandatory reporting . . .