2027 FINAL RULES SKILLED NURSING
An Analysis and Commentary on Federal Health Care Issues by Larry Goldberg
Final FY 2027 Skilled Nursing Facility PPS Update Issued
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are issuing a final rule that would update the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Prospective Payment System (PPS) for fiscal year (FY) 2027, as required under section 1888(e)(4)(E) of the Social Security Act (the Act).
CMS will continue to use the concurrent pre-floor, pre-reclassified Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) hospital wage index as the basis for the SNF wage index.
CMS is not proposing any substantive changes to the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) ICD-10 code mappings.
The final rule updates the SNF Quality Reporting Program (QRP) including removing two measures from the program, specifically the COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage Among Healthcare Personnel (HCP) Measure and the COVID-19 Vaccine: Percent of Patients/ Residents Who Are Up to Date Measure beginning with the FY 2028 SNF QRP.
CMS is finalizing the revision of the SNF QRP data submission deadlines from 4.5 months to 45 days.
CMS is finalizing updates to the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing (SNF VBP) Program, including estimating performance standards and updating the review and correction policy for measures calculated with MDS assessment data.
The rule is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on July 31. A copy of the 185-page rule is currently available at: https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-15562.pdf.
The wage index tables can be accessed at: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/cms-1843-p-wage-index-tables-fy-2027-proposed.zip.