You can look forward to standardization of data soon, which should come as a relief to providers across the board. A bill called the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014 (H.R. 4994/S. 2553) was recently introduced in both the House and Senate.
“If it becomes law, IMPACT would instruct the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to standardize patient assessment data, quality, and resource use measures for PAC providers including home health agencies (HHAs), skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs), and long-term care hospitals (LTCHs),” says a June 30 American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) press release.
Areas which would be covered if the Act passes into law would include standardized patient assessment data at times of admission and discharge; new quality measures including functional status, skin integrity, medication reconciliation, incidence of major falls, and patient preference regarding treatment and discharge; Medicare spending per beneficiary, discharge to community, and hospitalization rates of potentially preventable readmissions etc.