On April 15, CMS published a proposed rule for the FY 2021 Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Prospective Payment System (PPS). The proposed rule includes a proposal to update the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) delineations used to identify facility as an urban or rural and to calculate the wage index. CMS has proposed that 47 currently rural areas will become urban and 34 currently urban areas will become rural if the proposal is finalized. The rule also includes a S748 million payment increase to SNFs and non-CAH swing beds which rural SNFs will experience as an average increase of 2.5%. CMS also proposed several changes to coding used by the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) case mix system and the SNF Value-Based Purchasing Program (SNF VBP). Find more information here.
