CMS Updates Nursing Home Compare and Releases Quality Action Plan

On April 24, 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a Press Release announcing that the Nursing Home Compare website now provides information regarding whether a nursing home is or has been on CMS' special focus facility (SFF) list. 

According to CMS, the SFF initiative was created because a number of facilities were consistently providing poor quality of care, yet were periodically instituting enough improvement to pass one survey only to fail the next.  As of April 2008, CMS reports that there are 134 SFFs out of approximately 16,000 active nursing homes.  Once a nursing home is selected as a SFF, a state survey agency will conduct twice the number of standard surveys and apply progressive enforcement until the nursing home:

• significantly improves and graduates from the SFF initiative;
• is granted additional time due to promising developments; or
• is terminated from the Medicare and/or Medicaid programs.

In conjunction with the Nursing Home Compare changes, CMS has also released a 2008 Action Plan for Further Improvement of Nursing Home Quality (Action Plan).  CMS reports that the Action Plan consists of 5 inter-related and coordinated approaches to improving quality.  In brief, those approaches include:

• Consumer Awareness & Assistance. CMS intends to provide an increasing array of information about long-term care that will be written in an easy-to-understand format and be available at www.medicare.gov.
• Survey, Standards & Enforcement Processes.  During 2008, CMS intends to undertake initiatives to improve the effectiveness of annual nursing home surveys and investigations prompted by complaints. CMS also plans to work with the states to improve current enforcement efforts.
• Quality Improvement. CMS will focus on a number of key quality areas, including reductions in the use of physical restraints, reductions in the prevalence of preventable pressure sores, and greater emphasis on developing individualized care plans.
  
• Quality Through Partnerships. CMS intends to continue and strengthen its partnerships with non-governmental organizations that are committed to quality improvement in nursing homes.
• Value-Based Purchasing. CMS intends for the Nursing Home Value-Based Purchasing Demonstration to augment and reinforce other quality efforts.