When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unlocked survey ratings for the first time since April, we analysts dove into the numbers expecting big changes. But as an earlier McKnight’s article...
Rolling with the punches, long-term care style
By
James M. Berklan
Jan 06, 2022
It’s amazing how perspectives can change over time. Here we all think we know, and have known, what life with COVID has been like after all these months.
Revamping CMS survey data integration amid regulatory lag in nursing home oversight
By
Steven Littlehale
Dec 08, 2023
The report titled “Uninspected and Neglected” by the majority staff of the US Senate Special Committee on Aging brings attention to a pressing issue: the severe understaffing of inspection agencies...
The solution to your staffing problems? Listen, learn, change
By
James M. Berklan
Jun 02, 2022
With more than 40 years in healthcare as a provider, and more significantly as a strategic market analyst, Irving Stackpole knows a thing or 300 about your business and the struggles you face.
Picking up the SOM manual
By
Trish Rodriguez
Sep 28, 2018
Admins with great surveys and high ratings use the State Operations Manual like a Bible.
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...
From blame to education: Rethinking the nursing home survey process
By
Eleanor Feldman Barbera, Ph.D.
Nov 17, 2020
What if, instead of a system based on the notion that nursing homes should be punished for deliberately flouting the rules, the underlying belief was that facilities were trying to do their best?
Why the survey system may never be fixed
By
John O'Connor
Sep 05, 2014
Given certain realities about skilled-nursing facility inspections, we should not be wondering why cheating has occurred. Rather, we should be amazed it hasn’t been more rampant.
3 questions to ask your pest management vendor before a survey
By
Tim Husen, Ph.D., BCE
Aug 18, 2017
Expected to meet the highest level of hygiene and sanitation, long-term care facilities are held to strict standards during their annual survey. As you prepare, it’s important not to overlook pest...
You have the answers to this COVID-19 test. But will you let yourself pass?
By
James M. Berklan
Apr 10, 2020
If you haven’t yet, you could soon be facing your toughest “grader” in this anxious pandemic era. But you don’t have to do it unarmed.