“The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should be doing more to enforce proper staffing levels at nursing homes, while providing more detailed information about nurse coverage hours to the public, the federal government’s top health care watchdog found in a new report.”
“About 7% of the nation’s nursing facilities failed to meet one of two key staffing requirements for at least 30 total days in 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) determined; another 7% logged between 16 and 29 days with non-compliant staffing levels…”
“CMS cracked down further on the RN issue in March 2019, handing out one-star staffing ratings to any provider with four or more days without an RN on staff.”
“But in the OIG’s view, CMS must go further. The quarterly data, the watchdog agency argued, does not capture day-to-day variations in staffing coverage that could adversely affect resident safety…”
“For that reason, the OIG suggested that CMS use payroll-based journal (PBJ) data to target underperforming facilities for enforcement and improvement; under PBJ rules, implemented in 2018, operators must provide CMS with a daily record of how many hours each employee worked.”
“The OIG also recommended that CMS…” Read the full article here.
Source: OIG Calls on CMS to Crack Down on Nursing Home Staffing, Increase Consumer Transparency – By Alex Spanko, August 7, 2020. Skilled Nursing News.
