SNF VALUE BASED PURCHASING

The SNF Value Based Purchasing (VBP) Program rewards skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) with incentive payments based on the quality of care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries, as measured by a hospital readmissions measure. As required by statute, CMS withholds 2% of SNFs’ fee-for-service (FFS) Part A Medicare payments to fund the program. This 2% is referred to as the “withhold”. CMS redistributes 60% of the withhold to SNFs as incentive payments. Each year, providers are notified of their rate multiplier that will be used to adjust their Medicare payments. The adjustment can rage from a 2% reduction to an increase of more than 3% for the better performing facilities.

NCHCFA has received several calls from providers wanting to know where to find their VBP multipliers. A tutorial on accessing these letters can be found here. In addition, the public data file with the VBP scores of all SNF providers in the country, for rates effective October 1, 2019, can be accessed here. The entire data file can be exported to Excel for easy viewing and filtering.

Additional information on the SNF VBP program can be found here.