CMS Makes Technical Adjustment to 2026 SNF VBP

(Sept. 3, 2024) The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a notice of a technical adjustment to how the Total Nurse Staffing measure will be calculated in the 2026 payment year Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing (SNF VBP) program. Members may recall that starting in October 2026, the SNF VBP program will expand from one to four measures. One of the measures added will be Total Nurse Staffing. Given recent changes in the source of the case mix used to determine the Nurse Staffing measure (from Resource Utilization Group (RUG)-IV weights to Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) nursing weights), CMS is making adjustments to ensure that the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 baseline period staffing measure calculated using RUG-IV is appropriately aligned to the FY 2024 performance period staffing measure calculated using PDPM nursing weights. The change does not impact October 2024 Medicare rates and is meant to ensure accuracy when the October 2025 VBP scores are calculated.

A user guide outlining the additional measures for FY 2026 is available here; a fact sheet on the FY 2025 SNF VBP program is here.

Contact: Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8841