Do you want to see a picture that explains a lot about skilled nursing right now? Take a look at this: (click to enlarge)
This is from the 2016 Medicare Part A data that CMS released a few days ago. There is a lot to unpack in that data set, but just based on this chart alone:
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14 of the top 15 RUGs billed Medicare Part A are Rehab.
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The most used nursing RUG was 13th, ES3.
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The top 12 RUGs, all Rehab, account for 98.5% of all billed days.
Not shown in the chart, but relevant:
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Rehab RUGs made up 98.89% of all billed Part A days in 2016.
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There were only 23 billed RUGs that were not Rehab.
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Only 8 of those were billed more than 0.1% of the time.
If it weren’t for long-term care residents we’d have a hard time calling these “skilled nursing facilities.”
You can see the impetus for PDPM clearly right here.
