A new payment model released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Thursday aims to reduce avoidable hospitalizations by amping up the medical treatments skilled nursing facilities are able to provide.

Physicians would also receive increased payments to perform comprehensive assessments for residents in SNFs. Currently, Medicare pays physicians less to conduct assessments at SNFs than it does for those conducted at hospitals.

Boosting those payments should help remove barriers to quality SNF care, reduce avoidable hospitalizations and lower costs for both Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, as well as dual eligibles, CMS said.

Blogger comment:

As usual CMS is playing doctor, nurse and family with its fixation on cost not outcome or need.  Must I say more about Government intervention in every aspect of our lives.  Second guessing and impounding rules instead of human judgment is why we are where we are … mired in regulations and paperwork.  Of course the use of money incentives rises to the occasion then enforcement then no quality at all.  Let’s just let CMS decide our fate on everything so human involvement isn’t necessary so Big Brother can continue to erode family and patient concerns at all.  Jerry Rhoads