Between the summer of 2021 all the way through May of this year, hospitals increasingly discharged Medicare beneficiaries with Covid-19 to the skilled nursing facility setting, only to drop back down in June.
The proportion of Covid-19 hospitalization discharges per month to a SNF increased by 8% from July 2021 to May 2022, cresting 20% before dropping back to about 17% in June. The trend could reflect staffing shortages in the skilled nursing space, and how that created a bottleneck in discharges from the hospital.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Thursday released an update to its Covid-19 Hospitalization Trends report, reflected in the data above.
The updated report shows Covid-19 Medicare patients discharged to a SNF, along with those who died in the hospital, those sent to an assisted living facility, a nursing home, their own homes, home health, or hospice.
The report also presents data cut by year, half-year, month, state and various demographic characteristics, along with discharge settings.
Medicare Covid patients discharged to home health increased modestly alongside SNFs during the same time period, according to CMS data, but didn’t experience a drop off in discharges between May and June.
By far the highest percentage of Medicare Covid patients were discharged to their own home or to assisted living facilities and nursing homes – these discharge settings saw a surge in discharges from about 38% to 47% from February to June of this year.
Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) Covid hospitalizations from Jan. 1, 2020 through June 30, 2022 totaled about 1.47 million, according to the report. The average Medicare payment per Covid hospitalization was $22,167, with a total of $32.7 billion for the timeframe.
CMS said data related to Medicare Advantage (MA) beneficiaries is on a longer lag time, with 90% of MA claims submitted within 12 months, compared to 3 months for FFS claims.
