Fixes for the “Broken” Nursing Home Star Ratings Part 2: Staffing

Source: CMS Welcome to the second installment of our four-part series on how the CMS Five-Star rating system for Nursing Homes can be improved.  Last month we covered the Survey domain and this month, we’re turning our focus to Staffing. From the perspective of the operator or administrator, staffing represents a constant battle.  On one […]

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 […]

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 […]