As staffing shortages continue to grip providers across the country, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced last week that it will put measures in place to establish better transparency on staffing levels at nursing homes moving forward.
Numbers on staffing turnover and weekend staffing levels for nursing homes will start getting posted on the Medicare website this month, according to a memo from CMS published last Friday.
These numbers will be used in CMS’s five-star rating system beginning in July.
The new guidance, effective immediately, comes after multiple sources raised concerns over staffing data reporting and discrepancies in weekend staffing numbers.
In a deep dive into the ways CMS measures nursing home performance across the country published last March by the New York Times, self-reported staffing data was found to often be inaccurate and inflated.
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) also found some holes in the system and recommended CMS report measures of nurse turnover as soon as practicable.
“CMS has opportunities to better use the staffing information that nursing homes report,” said the OIG report, released last March. “CMS can take additional steps to improve the effectiveness of state survey agencies’ weekend inspections and strengthen oversight of staffing in nursing homes.”
The OIG raised additional concerns about whether consumers have a clear understanding of how nursing homes’ staffing levels change from day to day, particularly on weekends. The agency recommended that CMS provide data to consumers on nurse staff turnover and tenure and take additional steps to strengthen oversight of nursing home staffing.
As a result, CMS will begin posting data on the level of weekend RN and total nurse — e.g., RN, LPNs, CNAs — staffing for all nursing homes on the Care Compare website beginning January 2022, according to the memo published Friday.
The numbers will be reported in terms of the average number of RN and total nurse hours worked per resident per day on weekends.
Improving nursing home staffing has become a top priority for CMS, and the organization believes that by adding the more detailed data reporting on staffing will inform consumers about the staffing environment of each facility.
Lower RN, total nurse and administrator turnover are reportedly affiliated with higher five-star ratings.
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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Office of Inspector General
