06 May
CMS released its monthly updates today, and with them, some major changes as a result of Covid-19. Per CMS’s memo on March 23rd, most normal Survey activity has stopped. State Survey agencies are now only conducting the following types of surveys:
- Complaint Inspections
- Revisits for previous Surveys where Immediate Jeopardy deficiencies were found
- Targeted Infection Control inspections
As a result, CMS has decided to freeze the Survey Star Rating from this month forward. New Survey results will continue to be posted, but not count towards the Star Rating. There’s typically a lag of several months between the completion of the Survey and its publication – we’re just now seeing Survey results roughly from October 2019 through February 2020 – but we do still expect that these Standard Surveys will eventually be incorporated into the Survey Star Rating.
StarPRO’s apps will list out any new post-freeze Surveys, as well as an “estimated unfrozen” Survey Star Rating starting from the end of May, when the next set of data is published.
