Properly capturing degrees of acuity within the industry’s two major payers, Medicare and Medicaid, and having acuity accurately and consistently represented and understood in data, is an area that needs attention, Marc Zimmet told Skilled Nursing News. Acuity levels are, after all, impacted by previously missed diagnoses for certain conditions.
“Respiratory therapy is a classic example. It’s a very powerful reimbursement driver. It’s not that patients weren’t getting respiratory therapy nebulizers [before the pandemic or PDPM]. It’s that we got a lot better at documenting and capturing it and that makes the patients look sicker,” said ZImmet, CEO of Zimmet Healthcare Services Group.
