This is yet another law that adds to the list of metrics and data standardization in the name of quality patient care.
On October 6, 2014 President Obama signed into law H.R. 4994, the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (IMPACT Act), bipartisan legislation “aimed at strengthening and improving post-acute care for Medicare beneficiaries.”
Here the goal is to reform post-acute care payments (via site neutral or bundled payments). The additional data will “ensure that Medicare dollars are spent efficiently and that high quality care is provided.”
A standardized assessment tool will measure, among other things, the patients’ Functional status, cognitive function, and changes in function and cognitive function; skin integrity and changes in skin integrity; medication reconciliation; and incidence of major falls.
What is telling about the press release is that suggestions were taken from “70 stakeholders in the healthcare community.” Lesson: very few people are making rules for all of us.
For more information and full text of the IMPACT Act: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr4994
Synopsis courtesy of Marilyn Singleton, MD, JD @MSingletonMDJD
