The Age-Friendly Hospital Rating is a new structural measure included in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 2025 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Final Rule.
This measure is designed to assess hospitals’ commitment to delivering high-quality care to patients 65 and older. The rating focuses on five key domains: patient goals, medication management, frailty screening, social vulnerability, and leadership commitment.
Hospitals must affirmatively attest to these domains to demonstrate their compliance with best practices for older adults. The implementation of this measure includes specific data collection and submission requirements, as outlined by CMS.
Under the 2025 IPPS Final Rule, hospitals and health systems are required to submit data for the Age-Friendly Hospital Rating measure on an annual basis. The data submission is structured around the five domains, and hospitals must evaluate whether they meet the criteria for each domain fully to receive credit.
Partial compliance with a domain does not earn points, meaning hospitals must engage with all the elements within a domain to receive one point for that area. For example, in the domain focused on frailty screening and intervention, a hospital must meet all corresponding attestation statements to earn a point. This includes a requirement to screen for risks of malnutrition, mobility, and mentation, upon admission or before major surgery. Qualifying plans must submit management plans, and data collection is required.
This measure also requires processes to lower the risk of delirium in the emergency room.
The data collection process is streamlined through the CMS Hospital Quality Reporting (HQR) system. Hospitals will use this tool to submit their data once per year. The CMS tool will collect the hospitals’ attestation statements for each of the five domains, verifying whether they can affirmatively attest to engaging in the best practices defined by CMS for the care of older adults.
Additionally, the IPPS Final Rule mandates that hospitals report their measure results, regardless of their responses to the attestation questions. This reporting is part of the pay-for-reporting structure of the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program, which ensures that hospitals provide transparent data about their care practices for older adults.
Hospitals are not penalized financially for their attestation responses, but are required to submit accurate and timely data through the HQR system.
Hospitals must submit this information annually, with mandatory reporting beginning in the 2025 reporting period. The Age-Friendly Hospital measure aims to ensure transparency and consistency in hospital reporting, allowing CMS to monitor and improve the quality of care delivered to older adults across the healthcare system.
Although many of the measures in this initiative overlap with other quality reporting requirements, it may be beneficial to review and ensure there is a crosswalk with the initial nursing documentation, therapy evaluations (PT, OT, and ST), and case management/social work documentation to ensure that information is easy to extract for data collection, reporting, and future interventions.
Today, I want to bring attention to an issue that is once again under scrutiny, how hospitals report patient harm events under the Centers for
As with many other physicians of a certain age, I have had the opportunity to practice patient care in both the worlds of paper and
Please log in to your account to comment on this article.
Master the complexities of heart failure coding with this expert-led webcast by Emily Montemayor, CCS, CMBCS, COC, CPC, CPMA. Discover strategies to ensure compliance with ICD-10-CM guidelines, documentation integrity, and capture comorbidities like CKD and hypertension. Learn how to resolve coding challenges, improve documentation practices, and submit clean claims to minimize denials and safeguard your organization’s financial health. With practical insights and real-world examples, this session equips you to prevent revenue leakage, enhance compliance, and secure optimal reimbursement—all while supporting better patient outcomes.
Prepare your organization for the 2025 OPPS updates with expert insights from Tiffani Bouchard, CCS, CRCR, a Revenue Integrity Professional with over 30 years of experience. This webcast will address critical challenges in charge capture and coding, providing clarity on APC policies, C-APC packaging, exclusions, and payer-specific requirements. Attendees will learn actionable strategies to ensure compliance, optimize reimbursement, and mitigate risks of claim denials. Gain the knowledge needed to implement updates effectively, educate your team, and maintain seamless revenue cycle operations in the face of evolving OPPS complexities.
Join Beth Wolf, MD, CPC, CCDS, for an in-depth webcast on the FY2025 spinal fusion MS-DRG updates. Discover key changes in DRG classification, understand impacts on documentation and CMI, and learn strategies to ensure compliance.
Join Angela Comfort, DBA, MBA, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P, as she presents effective strategies to strengthen collaboration between CDI, coding, and quality departments in acute care hospitals. Angela will also share guidance on implementing cross-departmental meetings, using shared KPIs, and engaging leadership to foster a culture of collaboration. Attendees will gain actionable tools to optimize documentation accuracy, elevate quality metrics, and drive a unified approach to healthcare goals, ultimately enhancing both patient outcomes and organizational performance.
Dr. Ronald Hirsch dives into the basics of Medicare for clinicians to be successful as utilization review professionals. He’ll break down what Medicare does and doesn’t pay for, what services it provides and how hospitals get paid for providing those services – including both inpatient and outpatient. Learn how claims are prepared and how much patients must pay for their care. By attending our webcast, you will gain a new understanding of these issues and be better equipped to talk to patients, to their medical staff, and to their administrative team.
Hospitals face growing challenges in measuring observation metrics due to inconsistencies in classification, payer policies, and benchmarking practices. Join Tiffany Ferguson, LMSW, CMAC, ACM, and Anuja Mohla, DO, FACP, MBA, ACPA-C, CHCQM-PHYADV as they provide critical insights into refining observation metrics. This webcast will address key issues affecting observation data integrity and offer strategies for improving consistency in reporting. You will learn how to define meaningful metrics, clarify commonly misinterpreted terms, and apply best practices for benchmarking, and gain actionable strategies to enhance observation data reliability, mitigate financial risk, and drive better decision-making.
The 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule brings significant changes to payment rates, coverage, and coding for physician services, impacting practices nationwide. Join Stanley Nachimson, MS., as he provides a comprehensive guide to understanding these updates, offering actionable insights on new Medicare-covered services, revised coding rules, and payment policies effective January 1. Learn how to adapt your practices to maintain compliance, maximize reimbursement, and plan for revenue in 2025. Whether you’re a physician, coder, or financial staff member, this session equips you with the tools to navigate Medicare’s evolving requirements confidently and efficiently.
Dr. Ronald Hirsch provides critical details on the new Medicare Appeal Process for Status Changes for patients whose status changes during their hospital stay. He also delves into other scenarios of hospital patients receiving custodial care or medically unnecessary services where patient notifications may be needed along with the processes necessary to ensure compliance with state and federal guidance.
Copyright © 2025 ICD10monitor. Powered by MedLearn Media.
Prepare for the 2025 CMS IPPS Final Rule with ICD10monitor’s IPPSPalooza! Click HERE to learn more
Get 15% OFF on all educational webcasts at ICD10monitor with code JULYFOURTH24 until July 4, 2024—start learning today!
CYBER WEEK IS HERE! Don’t miss your chance to get 20% off now until Dec. 2 with code CYBER24
