Last week, CMS announced that it would be pausing the PEPPER Program through the fall, while it works to improve the data and make enhancements to the reports.

“There will be a temporary pause in distributing PEPPERs as CMS works to improve and update the program and reporting system. This pause will remain in effect through the fall of 2024. We recognize the importance of these reports to your practice. Therefore, during this time, CMS will be working diligently to enhance the quality and accessibility of the reports.” https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Monitoring-Programs/Data-Analysis

As a reminder, PEPPER stands for Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report.

It is an educational tool to support CMS’ efforts to protect the Medicare trust fund.

PEPPER is an electronic report that provides SNF-specific Medicare data compared to National and State averages on a variety of PDPM metric target areas.

Providers are not required to take action, and the reports do not indicate error; however, they can be used as a guide for auditing and monitoring compliance and trends to mitigate risk.

The PEPPERS are released every year in April, but this year CMS will suspend the program.

We recommend that during this pause, providers continue to use other methods to track their compliance and utilization.

This includes a thorough triple check, continued auditing, and internal data analysis.

If you have questions, or need additional information, please email us at: info@enhancetheraies.com.