SNF VBP Calculator
Enter a nursing home’s Value-Based Purchasing measure rates, or set the points directly, to see its performance score and Medicare payment change. Then see where that lands among every home CMS scored, nationally or in one state.
How the payment change is built
- Achievement: each measure earns 0 to 10 points against national standards, 0 below the achievement threshold and 10 at the benchmark.
- Improvement: up to 9 points for beating the home’s own baseline. Each measure keeps the higher of the two.
- Score: the points are added and scaled to 100 across the measures the home was scored on. Every measure counts the same.
- Payment: CMS withholds 2% of every Medicare Part A payment and pays 60% of the pool back on a curve, so the multiplier runs from 0.98 up. Above 1, a home earned back more than was withheld.
A home with too few residents or stays to be scored on enough measures is left out for the year: no withhold and no bonus.
The measures by year
- FY2026 (October 2025 to September 2026)
- Four measures: readmissions, infections needing hospitalization, nurse staffing hours and nursing staff turnover, measured over FY2024. At least two were needed for a score.
- FY2027 (October 2026 to September 2027)
- Eight measures. Adds discharge to community, falls with major injury, long-stay hospitalizations and the discharge function score, measured mostly over FY2025. At least four are needed.
- FY2028
- A within-stay measure of potentially preventable readmissions replaces the 30-day readmission measure. The health equity bonus adopted in 2023 was repealed before it ever applied.
Questions
Why did fewer nursing homes earn a VBP bonus in FY2026?
In FY2025, scored on readmissions alone, 41% of homes got the full 2% cut. In FY2026, with four measures, 9% did, and the median payment change improved from −1.73% to −1.36%. But 21% of homes finished above break-even, down from 27%. The amount paid back is fixed at 60% of what is withheld, so with fewer homes at the bottom, less is left to lift others above break-even. Those that did come out ahead got more: the top homes earned +2.78% in FY2026, up from +1.81% in FY2025. There is no fixed cap. CMS sets a scaling factor each year so the payments add up to the 60%, and with fewer homes sharing it, the top payment rose.
Where does a nursing home find its own VBP rates?
CMS sends each SNF confidential feedback reports with its measure rates, and its performance score and multiplier before each program year. CMS also publishes every home's results once a year in the Provider Data Catalog, about two months into the program year.
How close is this calculator to CMS's numbers?
For a year CMS has published, the multiplier formula here reproduces every home's published multiplier from its performance score. Scores entered from rates can differ slightly because CMS scores unrounded rates. For a year CMS has not published, the multiplier uses the latest published year's scaling factor, so it is an estimate.
Estimate only, following 42 CFR 413.338, the SNF PPS final rules and CMS’s published SNF VBP results. It looks nothing up for a particular nursing home and is not a payment determination. BARA Analytics is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by CMS.