Articles and Blogs

The transfers and discharges of COVID-19 positive and COVID-19 negative residents are challenging for skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) and/or nursing facilities (“NFs”), (in this alert, SNFs and NFs are collectively Long‑Term Care Facilities “LTC Facilities”) as they navigate the evolving government guidance and delicate communication and public relations areas. On April 13, 2020, the... READ MORE

This is another article in a series discussing the complete overhaul of Part 483 to Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the Requirements for States and Long-Term Care Facilities (“Final Regulations”) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”). BACKGROUND On September 28, 2016, CMS released a complete overhaul of Part... READ MORE

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a Survey & Certification Memo (“S&C Letter”) to state agencies detailing the result of the governmental shutdown on long-term care providers as it relates to surveys.  As of this writing, the S&C Letter has not been published or otherwise made publicly available, and the below... READ MORE

Since 2005, a group of associations known as the Long Term and Post Acute Care (LTPAC) Health Information Technology Collaborative (the Collaborative) have hosted the annual LTPAC Health IT Summit to discuss and advance health IT issues for long LTPAC providers.  Following the Summit, the Collaborative publishes a Road Map that identifies the progress... READ MORE

The New York Times (NYT) had an interesting article in their The New Old Age segment that described the issues men have in finding appropriate long-term care facilities.  The article highlighted an intuitive, yet often overlooked issue concerning the number of rooms a facility has versus the number of beds.  Many facilities have two... READ MORE

A Medicare beneficiary is not liable for custodial care services rendered by a Mississippi nursing home because the facility failed to give adequate notice the services were not covered by Medicare, a federal appeals court panel ruled on October 25.  The case (Mississippi Care Center of Morton LLC, Sebelius, 5th Cir., No. 10-60595, Oct.... READ MORE

CMS has published a proposed regulation that would limit the ability of institutional pharmacies to offer pharmacist consultation services to facilities.  CMS believes that relationships between nursing homes and pharmacy suppliers could result in “recommendations that conflict with the best interests of nursing home residents.” The proposed regulation would require facilities to hire independent pharmacists to... READ MORE

CMS will host their monthly Skilled Nursing/LTC Open Door Forum on Thursday, October 20, from 2-3pm EST.  This call was originally scheduled on October 13.  The information to participate in the call is available here. The recent changes to MDS 3.0 and PPS are likely to be heavily discussed topics.    Should you have any questions, please contact: Todd Selby... READ MORE

While Congress was able to present the President with a compromised solution to cut Federal spending and raise the Government’s debt ceiling earlier this month, all long-term care providers should anticipate future reimbursement changes.  Under the current law, the Budget Control Act of 2011t , Medicare and Medicaid are unchanged. However, the Act requires for... READ MORE