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...
Nursing homes with predominantly minority residents had more COVID deaths and cases, study affirms
By
Danielle Brown
Jun 18, 2021
Researchers are stressing the need to address systemic racial disparities in nursing homes after a new study showed facilities with predominantly minority populations suffered more COVID illnesses and...
BREAKING: CMS issues reprieve for 2,500 nursing homes yet to report COVID vaccination rates
By
Kimberly Marselas
Jun 14, 2021
Nursing homes that have not reported required resident and staff vaccination rates to federal officials will get a one-week reprieve before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services begins assessing...
Operator changes plan: will wait for full FDA approval to enforce COVID vaccination deadline for staff
By
Danielle Brown
Jun 10, 2021
An Ohio skilled nursing and assisted living operator now plans to wait until the COVID-19 vaccinations receive full federal approval before enforcing its inoculation mandate on employees after listening...
Nursing homes among ‘safest places’ for seniors following 98% drop in COVID cases: NIC
By
Danielle Brown
Jun 04, 2021
U.S. nursing homes are one of the “safest places to be” for seniors, with new data revealing COVID-19 cases at skilled nursing facilities have declined 98% since December and have accounted for just...
Skilled nursing occupancy ticked upward for a second month. Will such small gains be enough?
By
Kimberly Marselas
Jun 04, 2021
Skilled nursing occupancy climbed ever-so-slightly for a second straight month in March, reaching 71.6%, according to the latest NIC MAP data released Thursday afternoon.
Use the ‘5 C’s’ to tackle COVID vaccine hesitancy, physicians say
By
Alicia Lasek
Jun 04, 2021
The reasons for vaccine hesitancy — a delay in acceptance or refusal to be vaccinated — can be boiled down to five important factors that may help clinicians understand and better approach this issue,...
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.
New federal guidance says employers can require COVID-19 vaccine giving providers ‘peace of mind’
By
Danielle Brown
Jun 02, 2021
Long-term care providers can require staff to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment, according to new guidance released late last week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
FDA OKs third antibody COVID therapy; variants spur new pause on another
By
Alicia Lasek
Jun 01, 2021
A new COVID-19 treatment made by GlaxoSmithKline now is the third monoclonal antibody therapy federally authorized to help prevent severe disease outcomes in high-risk patients. But gene variants are interfering...