The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a slight rate increase and a bucketful of other tweaks to the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Prospective Payment System and quality reporting provisions related to Medicare payments.

CMS said Friday that it is proposing an increase to psychiatric facilities prospective payments via Medicare by 2.4%, net of efficiency adjustments, for the coming federal fiscal year 2026, which starts Oct. 1. CMS is also proposing to keep the overall cap on outlier payments at 2% of the organization’s psychiatric facilities-related spending.

The rate increase and other provisions will soon be under a comment period that will extend to June 10. The changes, made by federal rule, will be made final at some unspecified point in the summer, leading into the start of the new fiscal year.

Among the quality data reporting changes, the rule would require that the reporting period for all-cause emergency room visits 30 days after post-psychiatric facilities stay be extended from one year of data to two years.

The rule also proposes eliminating the following measures: “Facility Commitment to Health Equity; COVID–19 Vaccination Coverage among Health Care Personnel; Screening for Social Drivers of Health; and Screen Positive Rate for Social Drivers of Health.”

The rule would explicitly name time extensions as a form of relief for facilities operating under exceptional circumstances and seeking exemption from reporting requirements.

Facilities that do not submit required data face a 2-percentage-point reduction to payments under Medicaid, a fact sheet states.

“The [quality reporting program] aims to assess and foster improvement in the quality of care provided to patients in IPFs,” the fact sheet states. “By requiring [psychiatric facilities] to submit quality data to CMS and by CMS publicly reporting these data under the [quality] program, CMS ensures that patients can make more informed decisions about their health care options.”

CMS is also seeking responses to a request for information about adjustment payments based on teaching hospital status and rurality as well as developing a five-star rating system for psychiatric facilities.