As an 18-month moratorium on fines against nursing facilities comes to an end, the industry insists few are likely to be levied.
Federal officials put fines in eight areas on hold in late 2017, but the freeze will lift on May 28. Targeted areas included smoking policies, antibiotic stewardship and behavioral health services.
The American Health Care Association and its state affiliates have held workshops across the country to acquaint operators with the new rules. Lost caregiving time due to compliance activities will likely be the biggest expense most facilities see, noted David Gifford, M.D., the association’s senior vice president for quality and regulatory affairs.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services continued to survey and cite facilities for deficiencies in these areas for the past year and a half. However, regulators did not issue monetary fines. Altogether, CMS wrote about 5,000 citations to noncompliant facilities during that period, but only 26 would have resulted in a fine or denial of payment, Gifford noted.
“Centers were cited many times for the eight tags,” Gifford told McKnight’s.
CMS instituted the moratorium for enforcement penalties under Phase 2 of the Final Rules of participation in 2017 to give SNFs more time to educate employees. F-Tags included in the moratorium were: F655 – Baseline Care Plan, F740 – Behavioral Health Services, F741 – Sufficient/Competent Direct Care/Access Staff-Behavioral Health, F758 – Psychotropic Medications related to PRN Limitations, F838 – Facility Assessment, F881 – Antibiotic Stewardship Program, F865 – QAPI Program and Plan related to the development of the QAPI Plan, and F926 – Smoking Policies.
