Report to Congress: Unified Payment for Medicare-Covered Post-Acute Care

The Improving Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014 requires a report to Congress on unified payment for Medicare post-acute care (PAC). Medicare PAC providers are skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long-term care hospitals, and home health agencies. Each PAC provider setting has a separate Medicare fee-for-service prospective payment system. A goal of unified PAC payment is to base the payment on patient characteristics instead of the PAC setting. This report was sponsored by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and includes analysis from the Research Triangle Institute.