Where were YOU when CMS changed the Five-Star rating system?
By
Steven Littlehale
Mar 20, 2015
Some things will always stay etched in our mind. Where were you on February 12, when CMS publicly announced immediate changes to the Five Star Quality Rating System for Nursing Homes?
New survey shows Five-Star rating system’s flaws
By
Liza Berger
Jul 10, 2009
Many providers still are having a tough time embracing the new Five-Star rating system for nursing homes. A new survey shows that their concerns may be valid. Holleran, a national research and consulting...
The beauty of bad publicity
By
Gary Tetz
Aug 28, 2014
When I saw the New York Times article illuminating the clever ways devious operators could inflate their Medicare star ratings, I had mixed emotions ranging from fury to rage.
Three stars will be the new one star
By
Betsy Rust
Dec 07, 2016
Nursing home operators call it low occupancy. Medicare insiders call it a declining census. Economists call it excess capacity.
Additional staffing metrics point to organizational stability
By
Steven Littlehale
Mar 04, 2022
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, through its consumer‐facing website, has made additional nursing home staffing data available. Doing so during a public health emergency, when the industry...
Stars upon thars
By
Gary Tetz
Apr 23, 2015
It’s notoriously difficult, not to mention foolish, to try to predict the future of long-term care in America. In all of our nation’s recorded history, only one man can lay claim to true prescience...
Which matters most: Social media or Five-Star?
By
Steven Littlehale
May 27, 2022
Recently my colleague Ken Kelley, MS, OTR/L, RAC-CT, a clinical consultant/reimbursement specialist, posited something about Five-Star ratings that I hadn’t considered. He suggested that, in general,...
Five-Star is anything but frozen
By
Steven Littlehale
Dec 13, 2017
The day after Thanksgiving, CMS further defined its intensions with the Five-Star Quality Rating System; more specifically how the new survey process and derivative data will be used in its calculation...
Post-acute payment bundling system appears ominous
By
Liza Berger
May 21, 2009
Nursing homes have cause to worry about the prospect of a Medicare post-acute payment bundling system. If it pans out, facilities may end up on the losing side of the equation. That is just one of my takeaways...