Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare Please join the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday January 5, 2023 at 3:00 pm ET for a National Nursing Home Stakeholder Call. Long-term care providers, facility staff and resident advocates are encouraged to attend. This…… Continue reading National Nursing Home Stakeholder Call on Thursday January 5, 2023

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS posted Transmittal 209 – Revisions to Appendix I_Survey Procedures for Life Safety Code Surveys on December 8, 2022. [Subscribers to Briggs 1766/1766E will receive this transmittal in an update early next week as a placeholder in that LTC Survey Guide until the corresponding SOM posting…… Continue reading Revisions to Appendix I – Survey Procedures for Life Safety Code Surveys

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The SNF/LTC Open Door Forum (see agenda here) provided some key information to providers, including: CMS has not established a specific go-live date for transition to iQIES, but this will take place in early 2023.  Providers will be notified when the date is set.  To this…… Continue reading Information Provided During December 8, 2022 SNF/LTC Open Door Forum   

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS posted this updated agenda for today’s ODF just minutes ago.  The Importance of COVID-19 Vaccines and Timely Treatments plus the corresponding website is the addition.  I’ve bolded and italicized that below – beneath Announcements & Updates. The next CMS Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF)/Long Term Care…… Continue reading CMS Updates Agenda for Today’s SNF/LTC Open Door Forum

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The next CMS Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF)/Long Term Care (LTC) Open Door Forum scheduled for:   Date:  Thursday, December 8, 2022 Start Time:  1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) Please dial-in at least 15 minutes before call start time. Conference Leaders: Todd Smith &…… Continue reading CMS Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF)/Long Term Care (LTC) Open Door Forum – Thursday, December 8, 2022

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The December 2022 Quarterly Confidential Feedback Reports for the fiscal year (FY) 2024 Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing (SNF VBP) Program are now available to download via the Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (QIES)/Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports (CASPER) reporting system. These reports contain facility…… Continue reading FY 2024 SNF VBP Program December 2022 Quarterly Reports Now Available

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The Five Star Preview Reports will be available on December 5, 2022. To access these reports, select the CASPER Reporting link located on the CMS QIES Systems for Providers page. Once in the CASPER Reporting system, select the ‘Folders’ button, then select ‘My Inbox’ or the…… Continue reading Five-Star Preview Reports Available on December 5, 2022

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare As previously announced, CMS is preparing to release the Internet-facing, cloud-based system, referred to as the Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (iQIES) for Minimum Data Set (MDS) submission, in early 2023. Although the MDS submission functionality will not be available immediately, we strongly encourage users…… Continue reading Action Required: Register for an iQIES Account

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare OIG found that from 2011 through 2019, about 80 percent of Medicare’s long-stay nursing home residents were prescribed a psychotropic drug. While CMS focused its efforts to reduce the use of one category of psychotropic drug—antipsychotics—the use of another category of psychotropic drug—anticonvulsants—increased. This increased use…… Continue reading OIG Report: Long-Term Trends of Psychotropic Drug Use in Nursing Homes

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare On November 15, 2022, CMS quietly posted 2 Exhibits/Reports that have had placeholders in Chapter 9 (Exhibits) of the State Operations Manual. Chapter 9 shows a revision date of October 21, 2022. If you access those hyperlinks on the last page of the current Chapter 9,…… Continue reading Updated LTCSP Reports