Articles and Blogs

On March 1, 2022, President Biden outlined his plan to increase the quality of patient care, resident safety, regulations, fines and ownership transparency in skilled nursing care during his State of the Union address. The day before, on February 28, 2022, President Biden released a fact sheet titled “FACT SHEET: Protecting Seniors and People... READ MORE

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) has armed surveyors with detailed instructions on how to survey skilled nursing facilities for compliance with the CMS staff vaccine requirements. On January 27, 2022, CMS issued updates to the Long-Term Care Survey Process Procedure Guide effective January 27, 2022 (the “Surveyor Guide”). Also on January 27, 2022,... READ MORE

Recently, the Quality, Safety & Oversight Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a memorandum entitled “Revised COVID-19 Survey Activities, CARES Act Funding, Enhanced Enforcement for Infection Control deficiencies, and Quality Improvement Activities in Nursing Homes” (the “Memorandum”) that details new triggers and criteria for focused infection control surveys for... READ MORE

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the “Act”) was signed into law on December 27, 2020 and recasts the Medicare hospice survey requirements and establishes new Medicare enforcement options and procedures. The Act’s hospice provisions generally track those contained in the Helping our Senior Population in Comfort Environments, also known as the HOSPICE Act, which... READ MORE

Visitation, residents leaving and returning, telephone surveys, hospitalized patients being discharged to a nursing home and other issues have been challenging for skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) and nursing facilities (“NFs”) (in this alert, SNFs and NFs are collectively Long‑Term Care Facilities “LTC Facilities”) as they navigate the evolving government guidance. On April 24, 2020,... READ MORE

On March 13, 2020, the Quality, Safety & Oversight Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a second revision of a memorandum entitled “Guidance for Infection Control and Prevention of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (“COVID-19”) in nursing homes (REVISED)” (“QSO Memo”) that announced recommendations for skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) regarding restricting visitors, transfers... READ MORE

On March 4, 2020, the Quality, Safety & Oversight Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a memorandum entitled “Suspension of Survey Activities” (“QSO Memo”) to announce that it is suspending non-emergency inspections across the United States so that inspectors may focus on infectious diseases and abuse. CMS states this... READ MORE

Most skilled nursing facilities are not correctly complying with life safety requirements or emergency preparedness requirements, according to three recent reports by the Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. OIG recently issued three reports on its audits of life safety requirements or emergency preparedness requirements:... READ MORE

On December 11, 2019, the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality/Quality, Safety & Oversight Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a memorandum to State Survey Agency Directors entitled “Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Mission & Priority document (MPD) – Action” (“FY 2020 Memo”) that announced its work and intentions for the fiscal... READ MORE

On November 22, 2019, the Quality, Safety & Oversight Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a memorandum entitled “Updates and Initiatives to Ensure Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes” (“QSO Memo”) that announced a status update on the Interpretive Guidance for: (1) Phase 3 elements of the regulations in Part... READ MORE