The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on April 11 released the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 skilled nursing facility prospective payment system proposed rule for public inspection. The proposal, entitled FY 2026 Skilled Nursing Facility (SNFs) Prospective Payment System and Consolidated Billing and Updates to the Value-Based Purchasing and Quality Reporting Programs, will be formally published in the Federal Register on April 30, and CMS will accept public comments through June 10.

For FY 2026 CMS proposes increasing rates by 2.8%. CMS is also proposing updates to the requirements for the SNF Quality Reporting Program by removing four standardized patient assessment data elements under the social determinants of health category and proposing to amend the agency’s reconsideration policy and process.

Further, CMS proposes updates to the SNF Value-Based Purchasing Program, including removing the Health Equity Adjustment, estimating performance standards, applying the Program’s scoring methodology to the Skilled Nursing Facility Within-Stay Potentially Preventable Readmission measure, adopting a new reconsideration process that will allow SNFs to appeal CMS’s decisions on review and correction requests, and technical updates to the SNF VBP Program’s regulation text.

A Fact Sheet summarizing the proposals is available here, and a link to the proposal is available here. LeadingAge will provide more in-depth analysis in the coming days.