A facility in New Jersey that made national headlines after the New York Times reported on a wave of COVID-19 deaths among its residents has a connection to the defunct Skyline Healthcare nursing home chain — a company whose spectacular collapse spurred calls for greater transparency around nursing home ownership across the country. Louis Schwartz, […]
Category: Compliance
The federal government this week offered a glimpse into how non-emergency medical procedures, temporarily banned amid the COVID-19 pandemic, may resume in certain parts of the country. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released guidance for how health care providers should prioritize non-coronavirus care once their specific region hits Phase I of the […]
Following weeks of pressure from industry leaders, resident advocates, and the media, the federal government on Sunday night ordered the nation’s nursing homes to begin reporting all positive COVID-19 cases directly to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Seema Verma described the move as a […]
Health care providers across the continuum have grappled with major challenges in providing care for patients with COVID-19, and several states have taken steps to shield them from lawsuits related to care provided during the national emergency. Skilled nursing facilities are often included in those liability protections, but the extent to which the protections apply […]
Nursing homes that rely primarily on Medicaid funding were largely shut out of the first round of coronavirus stimulus money set aside for health care providers — and while the federal government has promised that help is on the way, a group of 27 U.S. senators wants faster action. Led by Sen. David Perdue of […]
Blanket restrictions on non-essential visits to senior living and care properties should remain in effect until the very last phase of the federal government’s plan to gradually reopen public places and restart the economy, the White House announced this week. Designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to vulnerable populations, the visitation ban for nursing […]
Over the last few weeks, the concept of “cohorting” nursing home residents has emerged as a key, but potentially fraught, strategy for blunting the spread of COVID-19. In theory, the concept makes complete sense: If providers and health officials can separate residents who test positive from those without COVID-19, they can provide safe, uninterrupted care […]
Over the course of decades, lawmakers have built a jury-rigged structure to support the American post-acute and long-term care landscape. At the base, Medicaid supports long-term care residents who can no longer live on their own without around-the-clock care. Medicare dollars pay for higher-acuity care that seniors require after hospital stays — and prop up […]
In communities where the peak of the illness caused by the novel coronavirus hasn’t yet arrived, authorities should start designating specific skilled nursing facilities as specialized COVID-19 facilities to ease hospital capacity, according to a Wednesday essay in the journal Health Affairs. And as they look to make those designations, authorities should not wait on […]
Buried in an early April announcement from the federal government about updated COVID-19 guidance for nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a pair of statistics from the early days of an infection-control crackdown by state inspectors. Surveyors found that 36% of facilities were not following proper hand-washing protocols during the […]
The state of California this week announced a program that will provide $500 stipends for certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) who work in the skilled nursing setting, funded primarily by a $25 million donation from social networking giant Facebook. Frontline caregivers who qualify under the “Skilled Nursing Facility Hero Awards” program […]
Saber Healthcare Group, LLC will pay $10 million to settle a federal investigation into its rehabilitation therapy practices, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Investigators had accused the Bedford Heights, Ohio-based Saber of working to artificially boost its Medicare income by pressuring therapists to place residents in the “ultra high” category, a classification that brought […]
Problems with securing sufficient quantities of personal protective equipment (PPE) span the health care continuum, but in the skilled nursing setting, many providers are grappling with severe shortages — even as they try to contain a contagious disease that presents unique dangers to their patient population. Widespread shortages of masks and gowns, coupled with a […]
The shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the skilled nursing setting has led to donation drives, workers making their own equipment from fabric and trash bags, and increasingly desperate searches for supplies on the part of providers as they try to cope with the COVID-19 national emergency. The search for supplies can get particularly […]
As recently as two weeks ago, the federal government was holding up Massachusetts as the pioneer of a push to “cohort” skilled nursing residents by converting some properties to centers dedicated to treating COVID-19. This week, state officials announced a significant change in its nursing home coronavirus strategy, citing concerns over spreading the disease in […]
Late last week, some operators of skilled nursing facilities — along with many other providers that perform Medicare-reimbursed health care services — woke up to a sudden influx of cash in their corporate bank accounts. But they may not necessarily be able to keep it. Without much fanfare, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services […]
The federal government on Monday released updated guidance indicating that nursing homes do not need any additional approval before transferring or discharging residents for the purposes of creating separate spaces for residents with COVID-19 and those without the infection. In a Monday memo to state survey agencies (SSAs), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) could formally release new COVID-19 reporting guidelines for nursing homes as soon as this week, sources told the Wall Street Journal Sunday. The publication had few other details about the exact scope of a potential CMS order, with a spokesperson telling the Wall Street Journal that “the […]
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep through the nation’s nursing homes, the industry’s already strained workforce could soon reach a new breaking point as caregivers become sick themselves — or fear spreading the virus to their loved ones. The staffing crisis hit the national media last week, when a nursing home in Riverside, Calif. […]
As calls for the federal government to release lists of nursing homes with confirmed COVID-19 cases grow louder, the industry’s largest trade group on Saturday urged members to report cases to state survey agencies — as well as local health authorities and family members. American Health Care Association president and CEO Mark Parkinson framed the […]
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