A new payment model released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last month could help to reduce preventable hospital admissions.

According to McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, the new plan would increase payments to skilled nursing facilities, allowing them to provide their residents with treatment for common ailments and conditions that could potentially lead to hospitalization.

Physicians would also receive increased payments to perform assessments at SNFs, while under the current model, Medicare pays physicians less to perform evaluations outside of a hospital environment.

Under the new model, participating facilities would be expected to reinvest in staff training and equipment purchases.

Effectively, the payments would make it easier for skilled nursing facilities to provide higher-quality care and lower costs to beneficiaries.

By expanding their patient-care role, SNFs could double-down to reduce hospital admissions by investing in equipment like the Swallow Solutions device, which has been shown to reduce hospital admissions by 61 percent.

The new payment model will enter testing in six health facilities across seven states later this year.