CMS Chief Seema Verma recently announced a “comprehensive review” of safety and quality standards for nursing homes.
In this post, Verma highlights changes that have already been made, including stricter staffing requirements as well as aligning reimbursements with performance.
Verma’s post reminds that the federal government will continue to overhaul its regulations for nursing homes across the nation.
Part of this overhaul includes an increase in transparency around nursing home assessments, no longer posting notice of agreement terminations with deficient nursing homes in local newspapers but now posting on the CMS website.
Chief Verma also touches on the president’s budget request to Congress, which would change the frequency of nursing home surveys to help deal with increases in volume, the severity of complaints and rising survey costs.
She notes that CMS is also looking to reduce paperwork and diminish administrative burdens when developing new guidelines and regulations by “removing unnecessary burdens on providers that create staffing challenges and increase cost without increasing quality.”
For more on this, see Verma’s blog in its entirety here.
