Adapt or Shut Down: How Smaller, Rural SNFs Can Ride Out the Storm

While rural skilled nursing facilities are facing the same reimbursement and regulatory challenges as their urban peers, they’re going to have to take some extra steps to survive the pressures. For one thing, rural SNFs are often dealing with a critical access hospital (CAH), defined among other criteria as being located more than 35 miles […]

ACO Announcements Add to Existing Skilled Nursing Pressures

Value-based arrangements generate much of their savings by shifting spending away from the post-acute setting, according to recent government announcements. That ups the already-high pressure on skilled nursing facilities to lower patient length of stay while maintaining quality of care. To cope, they’ll have to make themselves invaluable to both referral sources and payers who […]

CMS Sends Message with Quick PDPM Approval: Change Is Coming Fast

By quickly finalizing the new payment system for skilled nursing facilities, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a strong message that the model is final and that the industry will move forward with it. That’s according to a webinar from Minneapolis-based consulting firm Health Dimensions Group (HDG), which last week gave an […]

Tweaks to Bundled Payment Model Open Up New Skilled Nursing Opportunities

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) made some tweaks to the most recent bundled payments program that could boost participation by hospitals and physician groups — and skilled nursing providers should be ready, one expert told Skilled Nursing News. The Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI Advanced) initiative was first announced in […]