(a) Data format. General rule. The inpatient rehabilitation facility must encode and transmit data for each Medicare Part A fee-for-service and Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) inpatient—

(1) Using the computerized version of the patient assessment instrument available from us; or

(2) Using a computer program(s) that conforms to our standard electronic record layout, data specifications, and data dictionary, includes the required patient assessment instrument data set, and meets our other specifications.

(b) How to transmit data. The inpatient rehabilitation facility must—

(1) Electronically transmit complete, accurate, and encoded data from the patient assessment instrument for each Medicare Part A fee-for-service and Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) inpatient to our patient data system in accordance with the data format specified in paragraph (a) of this section; and

(2) Transmit data using electronic communications software that provides a direct telephone connection from the inpatient rehabilitation facility to the our patient data system.

(c) Transmission dates. The inpatient rehabilitation facility must transmit both the admission patient assessment and the discharge patient assessments at the same time to the our patient data system by the 7th calendar day in the period beginning with the applicable patient assessment instrument encoding date specified in §412.610(d).

(d) Failure to submit complete and timely IRF-PAI data, as required under paragraph (c) of this section—(1) Medicare Part-A fee-for-service.

(i) A given Medicare Part-A fee-for-service IRF claim will not be accepted and processed for payment until a corresponding IRF-PAI has been received and accepted by CMS.

(ii) [Reserved]

(2) Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) data. Failure of the inpatient rehabilitation facility to transmit all of the required patient assessment instrument data for its Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) patients to our patient data system in accordance with the transmission timeline in paragraph (c) of this section will result in a forfeiture of the facility's ability to have any of its Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) data used in the calculations for determining the facility's compliance with the regulations in §412.23(b)(2).

(e) Exemption to the consequences for transmitting the IRF-PAI data late for Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) patients. CMS may waive the consequences of failure to submit complete and timely IRF-PAI data specified in paragraph (d) of this section when, due to an extraordinary situation that is beyond the control of an inpatient rehabilitation facility, the inpatient rehabilitation facility is unable to transmit the patient assessment data in accordance with paragraph (c) of this section. Only CMS can determine if a situation encountered by an inpatient rehabilitation facility is extraordinary and qualifies as a situation for waiver of the forfeiture specified in paragraph (d)(2) of this section. An extraordinary situation may be due to, but is not limited to, fires, floods, earthquakes, or similar unusual events that inflect extensive damage to an inpatient facility. An extraordinary situation may be one that produces a data transmission problem that is beyond the control of the inpatient rehabilitation facility, as well as other situations determined by CMS to be beyond the control of the inpatient rehabilitation facility. An extraordinary situation must be fully documented by the inpatient rehabilitation facility.

[66 FR 41388, Aug. 7, 2001, as amended at 68 FR 45699, Aug. 1, 2003; 74 FR 39811, Aug. 7, 2009; 82 FR 36304, Aug. 3, 2017]