Fixes for the “Broken” Nursing Home Star Ratings Part 1: Survey

Source: CMS It’s not a surprise to see Nursing Homes in the news, and it’s usually not to paint a sunny picture.  Issues related to COVID-19 have understandably dominated much of the recent coverage, but a March article in the New York Times took aim at a different target – CMS’s Star Ratings system.  Articles […]

Infection Control Deficiencies Showing Outsized Impact on Survey Star Rating

Source: CMS As we reported in December, CMS recently announced that the results of Focused Infection Control Surveys (FICs) conducted during the pandemic would be included in the Health Inspection (Survey) domain of the Five-Star program for Nursing Home ratings. This reversed course from a previous statement that these deficiencies would not contribute to Five […]

Survey and Quality to be Unfrozen, Infection Surveys Included

Source: CMS The Thaw Continues According to their memo on December 4th, CMS will resume calculation of the Health Inspection (Survey) and Quality domains of the Five-Star Rating system for Skilled Nursing Facilities as of January 27, 2021. This continues the trend started last month with an end to the one-quarter “freeze” of the Staffing […]

Unfrozen Staffing Star Ratings Rise, Defying Expectations

Source: CMS Frozen No More At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, CMS issued several waivers to help facilities focus on patient care rather than on reporting requirements. In addition to the earlier halt of standard Survey activity, these waivers covered both MDS and PBJ data, resulting in freezes to several of the Star Rating domains. But […]

SNF Trends Report Underlines Correlation Between Star Ratings, Occupancy and Operating Margin

Image credit: CLA Recently, respected advisory firm CliftonLarsonAllen released their latest SNF Cost Comparison and Industry Trends Report.  CLA explores several prevailing themes in an industry besieged by challenges, including issues with decreased liquidity and occupancy, the rise of telehealth, and the continuing importance of PDPM to the bottom line.  But one of the findings […]

Covid-19 and Nursing Homes: Controlling Community Spread

With their high concentrations of vulnerable residents, Nursing Homes are particularly susceptible to outbreaks of Covid-19.  Countless news stories have documented the ravages of the disease among seniors in these facilities, with the death toll registering over 58,000 by the end of September per CMS data.  The effort to safeguard Nursing Home residents has been […]

New Infection Control Fines: Knowing What To Expect

On June 1, CMS outlined the details of the enforcement actions or penalties that can be levied against facilities for their performance on the new Targeted Infection Control Surveys.  We’ve written before about issues with past Infection Control deficiencies and about the new IC Surveys, but now, the two combined can be a significant liability […]

The Freeze Sets In: Minimal CMS Star Rating Changes Due to Covid-19

In our previous posts, we noted that CMS has frozen the Survey Rating and intends to freeze the Staffing Rating and some Quality Measures starting this month.  Let’s take a look at the impact of some of these changes. [visualizer id=”6994″ lazy=”no”] In a typical, non-frozen month, about 5% of facilities nationwide experience a Survey […]

Staffing Star Rating and some Quality Measures to be Frozen

On June 25, CMS outlined changes that affect the Staffing and Quality domains of the Five Star Rating system. Staffing First and perhaps most importantly, CMS ended the emergency waiver that allowed facilities to skip reporting their PBJ staffing data. Facilities must now report PBJ data for 2020Q2 by August 14. Second, because the waiver […]

CMS Releases Targeted Infection Control Survey Results

In a memo dated March 23, CMS announced a freeze on standard Survey activity and a requirement for states to focus on Targeted Infection Control Surveys and Complaint Surveys at the Immediate Jeopardy level.  On April 24, another memo outlined that no Survey conducted after March 4 would be used to change a facility’s Survey […]