Online resource packed with regulatory news and expert guidance, tips & tools pertinent to professionals across the post-acute care continuum.
CMS announced on November 17 that individuals from 7,313 nursing homes have completed the CMS COVID-19 training. This accounts for 12.5% of the approximately one million nursing home staff in the country. CMS is calling on all nursing homes to take action and require staff to complete this free training. “We’ve provided nursing homes with […]
Using federal data from twenty states, The Associated Press found that nursing homes had four times as many new COVID-19 cases in October than in May, rising from 1,083 cases to 4,274. Additionally, COVID-19 related deaths in among residents has more than doubled in that time, from 318 a week to 699 a week. While […]
More than 75% of eligible nursing homes who met infection control improvement benchmarks between August and September will split federal aid totaling $333M. This will be the first round of payments from the $2B fund meant to reward nursing homes with better resident outcomes than the surrounding communities during the coronavirus pandemic. In order to […]
Despite CMS recommendations to reopen nursing homes to visitors, New York state has taken a step back and reinstated restrictions to nursing homes and SNFs located in COVID-19 hotspots. In a four week period ending October 11, New York nursing homes reported 713 confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases, which is more than twice the number […]
A recent annual benchmark report found that SNF margins in FY 2019 remained at zero for the third year in a row. The report also found a correlation between a SNFs star rating and its operating margin. In 2019, SNFs with an overall stat rating of 1 or 2 had margins below zero, while facilities […]
The federal government announced plans on September 28 to send an 18 million rapid COVID-19 tests to nursing homes from Abbott Laboratories. The deployment of these tests comes after CMS updated the requirements for staff testing in late-August, requiring routine testing of staff based on community spread. In addition to the 18 million allotted for […]
Humboldt House Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a nursing home in Buffalo, NY, was hit with a $50,000 fine, the largest single fine imposed by the state Health Department, for infection control violations, according to The Buffalo News. The fine stemmed from an inspection in April, during which the inspector observed: COVID-19 positive residents rooming with […]
The federal government announced that a stockpile of N95 respirators will soon be released to nursing homes and other healthcare agencies. Each state is expected to receive approximately seven million masks from the stockpile that currently holds 44 million masks, with another 500 million on order. Some masks, however, will be available for purchase in […]
CMS announced August 17 that routine inspections will resume for all Medicare and Medicaid certified providers and suppliers. Onsite revisit surveys, non-immediate jeopardy complaint surveys and annual recertification surveys will resume as soon as resources are available. CMS has also provided guidance on resolving enforcement cases that were previously on hold due to survey reprioritization […]
CMS, under the leadership of the Trump Administration, has issued over $15 million in fines to more than 3,400 nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic for noncompliance with infection control requirements and the failure to report COVID-19 data. “The Trump Administration is taking aggressive enforcement action against Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes that fail […]