CMS Releases List of Special Focus Facility Nursing Homes

On February 12, 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a Press Release announcing that it has posted a broader list of the nursing homes identified as part of the Special Focus Facility (SFF) initiative. 

In November 2007, CMS released a list of 54 SFF nursing homes that had failed to improve significantly after being given an opportunity to do so. The broader list reportedly includes all nursing homes in the SFF initiative and identifies the facilities by category, including:

• New Additions:  Nursing homes added within approximately the past 6 months.
• Not Improved:  Nursing homes that have failed to improve significantly in at least 1 survey after being named as a SFF nursing home.
• Improving: Nursing homes that have significantly improved on the most recent survey, including no findings of harm to any resident and no systematic potential for harm.
• Recently Graduated: Nursing homes that have sustained significant improvement for about 12 months, indicating an upward trend in quality improvement compared to the nursing home's prior history of care.
• No Longer in Medicare & Medicaid: Nursing homes that were either terminated by CMS from participation in Medicare within the past few years or voluntarily chose not to continue participation.

According to the Press Release, CMS intends to add cross links between the individual nursing home pages on the nursing home compare website with the full SFF list in April 2008.  In August 2008, CMS also expects to provide more information on methods by which SFFs may access additional technical assistance to improve their quality of care.

In 1998, CMS created the SFF initiative in response to the number of facilities that were consistently providing poor quality of care and periodically instituting enough improvement to pass one survey, only to fail the next. 

CMS reports that there are currently about 131 active facilities identified as SFFs.  According to CMS, about 50 percent of the nursing homes identified as SFFs significantly improve their quality of care within 24-30 months.  However, CMS reports that about 16 percent are eventually terminated from the Medicare and Medicaid programs.