“The world of Medicare post-acute care (PAC), which as a general rule covers the 90-day period following hospitalization, is set to change. Over the next 7 years, the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (IMPACT) law rolls out a series of reforms that ultimately will rewrite payments in this sector, which accounts for about 23% of all Medicare spending. By 2022, payment rates will be tied to “individual characteristics instead of the setting where the patient is treated,” according to a summary. Doing so requires that individual characteristics come to be documented in a standard way, and the act requires Medicare to institute uniform assessments and collect them.
“The Act was quietly signed into law on October 6, 2014. In contrast with many Capitol Hill debates during the last 5 years, Congress approved the proposals by unanimous consent in the Senate and under a procedure known as “suspension of the rules” in the House of Representatives, which requires a two-thirds majority. The statute directly affects four different PAC service delivery settings: skilled nursing facilities (SNF), home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRF), and long-term care hospitals (LTCH).
- See more at: http://altarum.org/health-policy-blog/the-impact-of-impact#sthash.PPOmKzCx.dpuf
