Special Focus Facilities – New Details, New Watchlist

Understanding SFFs CMS’s Special Focus Facility (SFF) Program was implemented in 1998 and has made its share of the headlines over the years. Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey raised concerns in 2019, leading to the first publication of the list of SFF Candidates. Their 2021 proposal calls for further oversight and expansion of the program […]

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 […]

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 […]

CMS Releases Nursing Home COVID-19 Data

Since May 8, all Skilled Nursing Facilities have been required to report various COVID-19 related data to the CDC and CMS via the CDC’s website. The data points include: Resident beds and census Suspected and confirmed COVID-19 infections among residents and staff Total deaths and COVID-19 deaths among residents and staff Access to COVID-19 testing […]

April 2020 CMS Updates

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...