The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the Calendar Year (CY) 2022 Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) Proposed Rule, which includes a provision that would impact the inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) quality reporting program (QRP).

If finalized, this provision would require IRFs to begin utilizing the IRF Patient Assessment Instrument (PAI) v4.0 on October 1, 2022. The IRF PAI v4.0 was originally scheduled to begin on October 2, 2020; however, due to the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), CMS delayed implementation until October 1 of one full fiscal year after conclusion of the PHE through an interim final rule. The IRF PAI v4.0 includes the Transfer of Health (TOH) Information – Patient and TOH Information – Provider ‎measures, as well as certain Standardized Patient Assessment Data Elements (SPADEs). CMS noted that they believe IRFs are able to begin the administrative processes needed to implement the ‎IRF PAI v4.0, and that v4.0 will allow CMS to better support a January 2021 Executive Order aimed at ‎addressing equity.‎

The CY 2022 HH PPS proposed rule will be published in the July 7, 2021 Federal Register.