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Healthcare reform: Is the RUG-IV delay here to stay?

Contemporary Long-Term Care Weekly, March 25, 2010

The healthcare reform bill signed into law by President Obama on March 23 contains a provision that delays the implementation of part of Resource Utilization Group, Version Four (RUG-IV) by a year. RUG-IV was originally scheduled to be implemented alongside the MDS 3.0 in October but the amendment to the healthcare bill will not allow RUG-IV to be implemented before October 1, 2011. However, the law will still implement the RUG-IV changes to concurrent therapy and the look-back period to ensure that only services provided after SNF admission are counted toward RUG placement on October 1 of this year, along with the MDS 3.0.

“Everyone agrees that this glitch needs fixing, though there is not a provision in the reconciliation [bill] to do so, likely because only very selected legislation provisions meet the strict tests required for reconciliation legislation,” says Barbara Manard, vice president of long-term care/health strategies at the American Association of Homes & Services for the Aging (AAHSA). “Efforts are underway to devise an appropriate solution and return to the full implementation as originally planned for October 1, 2010.  At AAHSA, we are advising our member facilities to continue to assume that Oct 1, 2010 is the full implementation date.”

For complete coverage of healthcare reform and its effects on long-term care, please visit MDSCentral.

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