It’s time to put up or shut up on vaccine mandates
By
James M. Berklan
Aug 20, 2021
Will Wednesday’s White House announcement that COVID-19 vaccinations will be mandated for nursing home employees be a dealbreaker? It depends.
CMS: Providers themselves hold the key to regulators’ ultimate PDPM decision
By
Danielle Brown
Aug 06, 2021
Provider comments will be vital in determining the fate of potential pay adjustments to the Patient Driven Payment Model, federal health officials said Thursday.
Higher nursing home fines expected after CMS returns to per-day penalties
By
Danielle Brown
Aug 02, 2021
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is no longer issuing fines to nursing homes solely on a per-instance basis, reversing 2017 guidance issued under the Trump administration.
Oh where, oh where have the annual surveys gone?
By
Jessica Curtis
Jul 16, 2021
During the height of the pandemic, annual surveys of skilled nursing facilities understandably skidded to a stop. Flash forward to August 2020, when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services directed...
Feds called on to adopt less restrictive provider fire and life safety codes
By
Danielle Brown
Jul 15, 2021
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is being urged to adopt an updated life safety code regulation after providers warned the edition slated to go into effect could cause “unnecessary nursing...
CMS per-incident penalties for providers soar — and could be headed higher
By
Danielle Brown
Jul 01, 2021
The total amount of fines the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has collected through per-incident penalties has increased more than eight-fold from 2016 to 2020, and the figure is projected to...
Pressure mounting on CMS to exclude COVID vaccination data in quality reporting
By
Danielle Brown
Jun 18, 2021
More long-term care stakeholders are calling on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to ditch its proposal to expand the Skilled Nursing Facility Quality Reporting Program to include staff COVID-19...
It’s time to be a team player and place public safety first
By
Neville M. Bilimoria
Jun 18, 2021
Recent legislative activity in Ohio just highlights the public’s and the government’s fickle view of long-term care in our country.
Providers tell CMS it’s ‘decidedly’ the wrong time to toy with PDPM rates
By
Kimberly Marselas
Jun 03, 2021
Providers need more time before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would implement any adjustments to PDPM payment rates, operators and associations have told the agency in official comments.
CMS: Lower COVID rates linked to higher nursing home quality ratings
By
Alicia Lasek
Jun 02, 2021
Higher facility star ratings are tied to lower COVID transmission rates and fewer deaths, according to the agency’s chief medical officer and director of its Center for Clinical Standards and Quality.