CMS Launches New Nursing Home Payment Model Demonstration

On March 24, 2016, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a demonstration project to test a new payment model for nursing facilities.  The premise of the model is to pay a higher daily rate to nursing facilities to provide services to current long-stay residents with six specific conditions.  This higher payment is intended to cover the costs of higher intensity treatment and monitoring for these individuals in the nursing facility to avoid transferring them to a hospital and potentially-avoidable hospitalizations.  The six conditions—pneumonia; dehydration; congestive heart failure; urinary tract infection (UTI); skin ulcers . . .