CMS posts new SNF quality measures on Nursing Home Compare

The CMS on Wednesday published additional quality measures on Nursing Home Compare for skilled-nursing facilities.

The release of the new quality data was mandated by Congress as part of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014. The IMPACT Act established the Skilled Nursing Facility Quality Reporting Program, which requires SNFs to report quality performance on several measures or risk a 2 percentage point Medicare payment reduction.

There are currently five measures included in the program: Percentage of SNF patients who develop new or worsened pressure ulcers; percentage of patients whose activities of daily living and thinking skills were assessed and related goals were included in their treatment plan; percentage of patients who experience one or more falls with major injury during their SNF stay; Medicare spending per beneficiary for patients in SNFs; and rate of successful return to home or community from a SNF.

The CMS opted not to add the potentially preventable 30-day post-discharge readmissions measure. The agency said it needs additional time "to determine if there are modifications that may be needed both to the measure and to the method for displaying the measure."

The average rate of patients who developed new or worsening pressure ulcers during their stay in a SNF was 1.7%, according to the CMS. The average rate of patients whose activities of daily living and thinking skills were assessed and related goals were included in their treatment plan was 95.8%.

And the average rate of patients who returned home from the SNF and remained alive without hospitalization for 31 days after discharge was 48.6%.

Performance on the final measure doesn't reflect patients who remain in the facility past the date of Medicare reimbursement and ultimately return home, according to Lyn Bentley, vice president of quality and regulatory affairs at the American Health Care Association. Additionally, she said "the measure can never get to 100%" because many SNF patients remain at the nursing home after their hospital stay.

There are other quality measures available on Nursing Home Compare like percentage of short-stay residents who report moderate to severe pain or percentage of long-stay residents who got an anti-anxiety or hypnotic medication.

More than 15,000 nursing homes in the U.S. have quality data on Nursing Home Compare.