On May 6, 2020, CMS announced that nursing homes are required to report COVID-19 data through the CDC’s National Health Safety Network (NHSN) reporting system to ensure appropriate tracking, response, and mitigation of COVID-19 in nursing homes. To be compliant with the new requirement, facilities must submit the data through … Read More
Major organizational change to reduce provider and clinician burden and improve patient outcomes
On Tuesday, June 23, 2020, CMS announced the “creation of the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics to unify the agency’s efforts to reduce regulatory and administrative burden and to further the goal of putting patients first. The new office is an outgrowth of the agency’s Patients over Paperwork … Read More
CMS-R-131 ABN form renewed
The ABN, Form CMS-R-131, and form instructions have been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for renewal. The use of the renewed form with the expiration date of 06/30/2023 will be mandatory on 8/31/2020. The ABN form and instructions may be found at: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-General-Information/BNI/ABN. The previous form … Read More
Fiscal year 2020 CARES Act information updated
CMS updated this 5-page Admin Info: 20-07-ALL notification on June 19, 2020. The original was posted April 30, 2020. “On March 4, 2020, CMS called for States to focus surveys on infection control and on March 23, 2020 provided a streamlined tool to facilitate these efforts. There is currently wide variation in … Read More
Infection prevention/control training: What your SNF needs to do NOW
Overall, nursing homes in the U.S. have done well at keeping COVID-19 out of their facilities but we still have lots of work to do in terms of infection prevention and control in our facilities. The statistics are sobering – to date, approximately 26,000 residents and 450 LTC workers have died … Read More