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 […]

Nursing Home Investors, HUD and CMS Quality Star Ratings: The Data Don’t Lie

Just like Google star ratings for restaurants, hotels and hundreds of other industries, star ratings result in a real financial impact for nursing home operators and investors. But it’s the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) star ratings...