SNF Quality Reporting Program Public Reporting Strategy

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Julie Apold

CMS recently published a COVID-19 Public Reporting Tip Sheet detailing the SNF QRP public reporting strategy developed by CMS to account for quality data submissions

that were optional and excepted from public reporting due to COVID-19. The tip sheet is a companion document to the SNF COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Tip Sheet that was detailed in an August 5 Advantage article.

Even though performance on the SNF QRP quality measures does not impact payment (SNF QRP is a pay-for-reporting program), CMS is required to publicly report the data. SNF QRP quality measure data submitted for Q4 2019 will be included in measure calculations for the Nursing Homes Compare site refresh scheduled for October 2020.

To accommodate for missing data for the Q1 and Q2 2020 excepted data, CMS will freeze the data following the October 2020 refresh for the 4 quarterly cycles (January, April, July, and October 2021) that would have contained the excepted data. Following the October 2021 refresh, CMS will resume public reporting with the January 2022 refresh. 

CMS will not issue provider preview reports for the 4 quarters in which the data is held constant, and there will be no data available (open) in the Review and Correct reports to correct for Q1 and Q2 2020. The SNF QRP data on Nursing Home Compare will return to its expected quarters of data displayed in April 2022.

Lastly, you may see a warning error in your MDS submissions for discharges submitted on or after July 1, 2020 that do not have a matching MDS admission record if the admission occurred in Q1 or Q2 2020. CMS will make adjustments to accommodate any records during this period with missing admissions, and these records will not be counted or included in your SNF data calculations for Nursing Home Compare.