����������

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission late yesterday discussed draft 2021 payment recommendations for Congress that would, relative to 2020 rates, increase Medicare payments for long-term care hospitals by 2.0%, decrease payments for inpatient rehabilitation facilities by 5.0%, decrease home health payments by 7% and leave skilled nursing facility payments unchanged. In discussing the draft payment recommendations for post-acute care providers, the commissioners considered factors such as each sector’s Medicare fee-for-service margin. The commissioners also discussed draft recommendations to conduct IRF medical record audits on unusual patterns of case-mix and coding, and expand the IRF outlier pool to “redistribute payments more equitably across cases and providers.”