Medicare Rates

Final Medicare payment rates effective 10/1/14 were posted in the Federal Register on August 5th, 2014. CMS adopted the new Bureau of Labor Statistics wage areas, resulting in two new Maryland areas. As a result both Worcester and St. Mary’s County were moved from Rural to Urban for the SNF PPS. Worcester moved to the Salisbury area, while St. Mary’s moved to a new area named “California/Lexington Park”. During this first year of adopting the new wage areas, CMS is using a 50/50 blend of the wage index for the old and new areas. While the impact of this was mostly positive for Worcester County, several of the rehab RUGs show large decreases over last year for St. Mary’s County, while the non-rehab RUGs show meaningful increases. This is not only due to the wage index change, but also because the case mix adjusted Federal rates differ for urban versus rural SNFs. Of course, overall rate changes vary for every Maryland area, as they normally do, due to changes in the area wage index from the previous year. Follow the link for the rates for all Maryland areas.