Version 12 22 8/1/2023
O – Hospital Services – Acute Care
Question: During an emergency situation, if acute care beds are all in use, can a hospital use its hospital
based skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds to help relieve overcrowding within the hospital itself?
Answer: It is important to clarify whether the SNF will be used to provide hospital-level acute care, or
SNF-level care. If the hospital is seeking to provide inpatient acute care in a SNF bed, then this is not
possible, unless an applicable 1135 waiver has been issued. Regardless of whether the SNF is hospital-
based or not, it is a separately certified Medicare facility and cannot be used to provide inpatient hospital
care, absent an applicable 1135 waiver.
Providing SNF-level care
Conditions of Participation (CoP) Requirements: There is no prohibition under the Hospital
Conditions of Participation against a hospital identifying patients who could be safely discharged to a SNF
earlier than usual, in order to free up inpatient hospital capacity. A hospital does not require a
§1135
waiver in order to do this.
Medicare Payment Requirements: For Medicare beneficiaries, if a
§1812(f) coverage option is issued
in response to an emergency, the 3-day prior hospital stay requirement for coverage of a SNF stay can be
temporarily relaxed under the circumstances described below, and a Medicare beneficiary’s care would be
reimbursed at the appropriate SNF PPS rate. This may help to relieve overcrowding in hospitals in the
event there is an influx of patients requiring care.
§1812(f) of the Act allows Medicare to pay for SNF
services without a preceding 3-day qualifying hospital stay if the Secretary of HHS finds that doing so will
not increase total payments made under the Medicare program or change the essential acute-care nature
of the SNF benefit. In past emergencies (such as hurricanes or major flooding), this policy has applied to
Medicare beneficiaries who were evacuated from the emergency area. In the event that a
§1812(f)
option is issued in response to a particular emergency, it would apply when a hospital that is operating
under a
§1135 waiver takes one of the following actions in order to prevent exposure of beneficiaries to a
communicable disease or other adverse circumstance or to ensure that the hospital can provide needed
care to more seriously ill patients during the emergency: 1) Discharges its inpatient to a SNF before
completing the full course of hospital treatment; or 2) Diverts a beneficiary directly to a SNF rather than
admitting the beneficiary as an inpatient, thus bypassing hospital admission altogether due to the
emergency.
Note that in past emergencies where we have determined that an exercise of authority under
§1812(f) is
appropriate, we generally have applied the waiver of the requirement for a 3-day hospital stay to the
geographic areas and timeframes specified in the Secretary’s waiver or modification of requirements
under §1135 of the Act. However, unlike the policies implemented directly under the §1135 waiver
authority itself, those implemented under authority of
§1812(f) need not be limited to those disaster-
related relocations that occur within the designated emergency areas. Instead, the policies implemented
under the authority of
§1812(f) would apply to all beneficiaries who are evacuated from an emergency
area as a result of the disaster, regardless of where the “host” SNF providing post-disaster care is
located.
Providing Hospital Care in a SNF
CoP Requirements: When the Secretary has authorized appropriate waivers under §1135 of the Act,
and there has been a determination that such waivers are necessary, a hospital that also has a hospital
based SNF on its campus potentially could expand its inpatient bed capacity by placing some hospital
patients into its hospital based SNF. Although the availability of 1135 waivers would depend upon the
facts and circumstances of the emergency, in past emergencies, under the
§1135 waiver authority, we
have allowed such an increase in inpatient bed capacity for up to the duration of the waiver period. We
expect the hospital to document that those patients admitted to the hospital based SNF continue to need
hospital inpatient care, and that the hospital provided adequate RN staffing in the SNF to make sure that
every patient requiring hospital inpatient care has immediate RN availability at the bedside as needed.
However, even under such a waiver, high acuity hospital patients or patients who need special equipment
or special treatments should not be placed in the SNF. Further, care must also be taken not to place
hospital patients into the SNF if those patients would place the existing SNF patients at risk (e.g., as a
result of behavior problems, communicable infections, etc.).
Medicare Payment Requirements: When an appropriate
§1135 waiver has been in place for this
purpose, the IPPS hospital should bill for the inpatient acute care services provided during the stay of
hospital inpatients temporarily located in the SNF beds. Should a hospital receive such a waiver, the
hospital would need to keep good records for billing and for cost reporting reasons. Since the hospital and
its hospital based SNF share a cost report, costs would need to be appropriately attributed.