SCIMS Data Set: Preparing for Future Changes

The Medicare program plans to revise the mandated patient assessment data sets, including the IRF-PAI/FIM® instrument, that are used to determine Medicare payments and monitor quality. The revisions are expected to include the use of new functional assessment items developed by the Medicare program as part of the post-acute care payment reform demonstration. The specific aims of this project are to: 1) review, discuss and select new functional assessment items from the CARE tool and other existing instruments, and 2)examine the relationship between the FIM data and the new functional assessment data at the item-level and scale-level.