16 Oct
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 […]
06 Aug
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 […]
04 Aug
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 […]
30 Jun
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 […]
16 Jun
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 […]
16 Jun
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 […]