Navigating the New CMS Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing Measures: Effective October 1, 2024

9/27/2024 - By Kelly Smith, PhD, CPHQ, CLSSBB

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) SNF Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program is a key component in driving improvements by financially incentivizing facilities to deliver higher-quality care. Historically, the SNF VBP program has largely focused on one key metric, namely All-Cause Hospital Readmissions. CMS is now expanding the program’s scope to more comprehensively measure the quality of care in SNFs.

As of October 1, 2024, CMS is introducing new measures to its SNF VBP program for FY 2026 with a performance period FY 2024 (10/1/23-9/30/24), signaling a shift towards a broader evaluation of SNF performance.

The new measures include:

Skilled Nursing Facility Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Requiring Hospitalization which assesses the rate at which patients in a SNF develop infections that necessitate hospitalization.
Discharge to Community which evaluates the percentage of residents who are discharged to their home or community rather than being readmitted to the hospital or another healthcare setting
Total Nursing Hours Per Resident Day, a staffing measure that looks at the total number of hours of care provided by nurses and certified nursing assistants, relative to the number of residents in the facility.
Long-Stay Hospitalization which evaluates long-term residents who have been hospitalized during their SNF stay.

To find out more about the new SNF VBP measures, contact the Saltmarsh Healthcare Consulting team.

About the Author | Kelly Smith, PhD, CPHQ, CLSSBB

Dr. Kelly Smith is a director in the Healthcare Consulting practice of Saltmarsh, Cleaveland & Gund. She has more than a decade of experience devoted to improving the quality of life and care for seniors and a strong background in quality framework implementation and process improvement. She served as the Director of Process Improvement for Opis Senior Services Group which provided skilled nursing, assisted living, home health services and short-term rehabilitation services. Dr. Smith supports provider efforts in the formation of integrated, system-based operations using data analytics to drive decision making and seeks to transform the delivery of senior services through the design of customized process improvement initiatives, leadership development and dissemination of best practices.