Are CMS risk-based surveys enough to address the downfall of survey delays?
By
Steven Littlehale
Apr 26, 2024
In April 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the testing of a risk-based survey (RBS) that streamlines the standard recertification process for high-performing nursing homes....
How should long-term care providers celebrate? Let us count the ways
By
James M. Berklan
Mar 31, 2016
Long-term care operators have plenty of reasons to recoil and lick their wounds over the course of a year. But there are also good times when they should find reason to smile. Like this past week.
Why nursing homes can exhale — but not get complacent
By
James M. Berklan
Jul 07, 2017
The announced delay of full enforcement of new survey requirements is indeed good news for nursing home operators and all of their compliance officers. Their blood pressure should now lower a few millimeters....
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...
No longer the CMS boss, Verma sounds more like provider friend than foe
By
James M. Berklan
Nov 03, 2023
Dwell on the past too much at your own peril, but providers could be forgiven if Seema Verma had them fondly looking back Wednesday.
The staffing rule’s Swiss cheese factor
By
Kimberly Marselas
Sep 08, 2023
There’s a glaring hole in the proposed federal staffing mandate, and no, I’m not talking about that same blackhole that’s apparently sucked in 190,000 skilled nursing workers with no sign of spitting...
Don’t get burned! Regulatory updates you need to know
By
Lisa Thomson, LNHA
Jan 02, 2013
As leaders in post-acute care, we need to stay abreast of the regulatory changes and its impact on our operations. In healthcare the one thing that remains consistent is change! Effective December 1, 2012,...
Five-Star surveys: Changed forever?
By
Spencer Blackman
Feb 08, 2021
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...
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...
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.