What the Kansas incentive factor is
Kansas sets each nursing facility's Medicaid rate from its own cost reports, then adds an incentive factor: a per diem that a building earns by meeting outcome lines. The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services publishes the method, the lines and the rates in the Kansas Register each spring as part of the Medicaid State Plan.
There are two pieces. The Nursing Facility Quality and Efficiency Incentive Factor pays up to $7.50 a day. PEAK 2.0, the person-centered care program KDADS runs with Kansas State University, pays from $0.50 to $3.00 a day depending on the level a building has reached.
The lines and what each pays
| Outcome (SFY 2027, proposed) | Per Medicaid day |
|---|---|
| Case-mix adjusted staffing ratio at or above the 75th percentile (5.61) | $3.00 |
| Or: below it, but improved 10% or more | $0.50 |
| Staff retention at or above the 75th percentile (71%), contract labor under 10% | $2.50 |
| Or: below it, but up 10% or more, contract labor under 10% | $0.50 |
| Medicaid occupancy 65% or more | $0.75 |
| Long-stay QM score at or above the 75th percentile (560) | $1.25 |
| Most available | $7.50 |
The staffing and retention percentiles come from Kansas cost reports, not CMS files. The QM line is different: it is your long-stay quality measure score as CMS's Five-Star Users' Guide assigns it, using the QM data available on March 15. That score runs from 155 to 1,150 across nine long-stay measures, and the Five-Star rating uses the same points for its long-stay star. The SFY 2026 notice printed the line as 600 without saying what it measured; the SFY 2027 proposed notice spells it out and puts it at 560.
What it pays, and the survey gate
The add-ons are part of the per diem for the state fiscal year, July through June, so they are paid on every Medicaid day. At the full $10.50, a building with 60 Medicaid residents adds about $230,000 a year; the QM line alone is about $27,000.
One survey can take all of it. KDADS reviews each building every quarter against the 12 months ending a quarter earlier. A health survey deficiency at scope and severity H or higher means no incentive factor. A G, with no H, corrected within 30 days, means half. Nothing above F means all of it. PEAK 2.0 payments depend on survey eligibility too.
See your building’s long-stay QM score and every long-stay measure.
What SuperQM covers, honestly
The QM line is $1.25 of the $10.50, about 12%. It is the part SuperQM computes: your long-stay QM points and star, from your own charting, for the quarter you're in, with the residents behind each measure and when each one clears. Two of the nine long-stay measures, hospitalizations and emergency visits, come from Medicare claims, and antipsychotic use now blends claims with the MDS; for the claims part SuperQM shows CMS's published figures.
Most of the Kansas money is staffing and retention from cost reports, $5.50 of the $7.50, and PEAK 2.0 is a program of self-evaluations and site visits. SuperQM shows CMS's published staffing scorecard, about two quarters behind, not a live forecast, and it doesn't score PEAK or surveys. See how SuperQM works.
When your work shows up
The SFY 2027 line read the QM data CMS had out on March 15, 2026. That is normally the January refresh, which covers four quarters of care ending the September before. If the pattern holds, the SFY 2028 line, for rates from July 2027, reads October 2025 through September 2026, and care from October 2026 onward counts toward July 2028.
Rates are set once a year, from July 1. The survey gate is checked every quarter, on January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1.
