July 24, 2017 - If you are a SNF, LTCH, or home health provider, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) may soon reach out to you with an invitation. Nearly three years after passage of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014, the agency is looking for more than 200 providers to help them complete the rollout of a key provision of the legislation that requires the development of standardized patient assessment data across PAC settings.
As outlined in the act, the elements have been developed around the following clinical domains: cognitive status, mental status (e.g., mood), medical conditions (e.g., pain), impairments (e.g., incontinence and sensory impairments), and other clinical topics (e.g., care preferences and medication reconciliation).
As this provision of the act is implemented, the data elements will need to be tested in the field for validation. Although participation is voluntary, CMS did a hard sell on an Open Door Forum call recently, to convince providers to volunteer.
In fact, the incentives are pretty compelling. In addition to getting free staff training and experience with the data elements that could become IMPACT Act requirements, providers will also have the opportunity to give “on-the-ground input” to CMS.
What’s more, participants will get an honorarium of $1,000, as well as the opportunity to “emphasize your commitment to quality, demonstrate participation in national standard setting, and showcase innovation in post-acute care.”
Participants will be trained before the six-month beta testing phase begins this November. The agency needs the following provider types to volunteer as testers:
28 IRFs
28 LTCHs
84 SNFs, and
70 HHAs
Although some invitations have gone already, the agency is still in the process of recruiting providers from the following 14 geographic/metropolitan areas:
Boston, MA
Harrisburg, PA
Philadelphia, PA
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Durham, NC
Chicago, IL
Nashville, TN
Kansas City, MO
Louis, MO
Dallas, TX
Houston, TX
Phoenix, AZ
Los Angeles, CA
San Diego, CA
CMS reiterated that the intent of this section of the act is not to create a new instrument and impose it on PAC settings but to identify the correct set of standardized data elements that will work across all current assessment tools and integrate them into each instrument.
Find more details about the beta testing and participant requirements HERE.
To find out how Collain Healthcare can help you navigate through the process once the act is implemented, click HERE.