Last July the Office of Inspector General released it’s annual report Solutions to Reduce Fraud, Waste and Abuse in HHS Programs: OIG’s Top Recommendations. In it, the top 25 unimplemented recommendations are identified along with the 25 recommendations from 2018 that were put in place. CMS has not implemented the recommendations from the OIG yet, but they have published a …
CMS has produced a series of podcasts “Nursing Home Strategy Part I – Strengthening Oversight,” that summarizes what CMS is doing behind the scenes and discusses recently published memos, survey process changes, and “putting patients above paperwork.” This is the first of many podcasts. The podcast largely discussed abuse and neglect, the surveyor’s responsibilities, law enforcement involvement, and reporting consistency …
With the implementation of PDPM in SNFs, questions, concerns and job security are being discussed by skilled therapists and rightfully so! In this article from AOTA, PDPM concerns are discussed along with responses to questions regarding facility operations/protocols. Using PDPM as the “reason” for downsizing your therapy department does not make the process of implementing PDPM easier and in fact …
Social media is a huge area of risk for providers and as such should be an important part of your QAPI committee discussions. Identifying your “social media footprint” is one step in the process however a bigger concern is your employees use of social media and how it could impact your organization. We have all heard about the horrific pictures …
Medication Overload, also known as Polypharmacy, continues to be on the radar for many providers and regulators and for good reason. The negative effects of even one medication can be debilitating for an older adult. Add additional medications to their drug regimen and the results can be catastrophic. In a recent interview with Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN and the …
Quality Award Recipients! HealthCap would like to congratulate the 2019 Bronze, Silver and Gold AHCA/NCAL Quality Award recipients! The quality journey is an ongoing process of evaluation and a commitment to achieving success. Communities who have enjoyed success “live” the Baldrige criteria on a daily basis, everything done within the community is evaluated against this criteria and when necessary, systems …
Although long-term care providers have been required to perform criminal background checks for many years, the national data base is not accessible to providers. In a recent article published in Provider Magazine, Mark Parkinson, CEO of AHCA/NCAL and David Gifford, MD, Senior Vice President of Quality and Regulatory Affairs at AHCA discussed a recent OIG report on the effectiveness of …
The OIG is inspecting nursing facilities to identify whether they are in compliance with the Life Safety Code and Disaster Preparedness. In this article, the OIG discusses the 2016 updated life safety and emergency preparedness regulations aimed at improving care. The OIG made the decision to visit nursing facilities to ensure compliance with the regulations. The visits were conducted in …
CMS recently blogged about their five-part approach they are using to ensure safety and quality in America’s nursing homes. The approach is: Strengthen Oversight Enhance Enforcement Increase Transparency Improve Quality Put Patients over Paperwork Seema Verma, Administrator, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wrote about the first strategy, Strengthen Oversight, in a recent blog post.
Recent studies have shown that people with hypertension in midlife have a higher risk of developing dementia. This study, although limited, may be important to you and the caregivers in your communities. Unfortunately, many of our residents are past midlife and this information may not be relevant to them. That said, it may be helpful for your staff, family members …
