Senate Passes Post-Acute Care Reform Bill

On September 18, 2014, the U.S. Senate passed legislation intended to strengthen and improve the Medicare post-acute care system. The Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (“IMPACT Act”) would standardize data assessments across the various post-acute care (“PAC”) providers by requiring long-term care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies to report standardized patient assessment data and quality and resource use measures. This alignment would enable Medicare to compare quality across different PAC settings and lay the groundwork for future payment reform, including site-neutral and bundled payment initiatives. (Read more)