Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare People can be discharged from nursing homes for many reasons. Discharges may be a positive outcome that reflects an individual’s choice. In other cases, discharges may be at the direction of the facility and against the will of the resident. There are strict rules about when…… Continue reading Resident and Facility Factors Associated with High Risk of Discharge from Nursing Facilities 

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare Please join the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 4:00pm ET for a National Nursing Home Stakeholder Call. We will be joined by Thomas Tsai, MD, MPH,  Senior Policy Advisor for the…… Continue reading National Nursing Home Stakeholder Call on Thursday October 6, 2022       

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP  Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The next CMS Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF)/Long Term Care (LTC) Open Door Forum scheduled for:   Date:  Thursday, October 6, 2022 Start Time:  2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) Please dial-in at least 15 minutes before call start time. Conference Leaders: Todd Smith…… Continue reading SNF/LTC Open Door Forum: Thursday, October 6, 2022 

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare This document – Five Star Quality Rating System Technical Users’ Guide: State Level Health Inspection Cut Point Table – provides the data for the state-level cut points for the star ratings included in the health inspection domain. Cut points for the staffing ratings and for the…… Continue reading Five-Star Quality Rating System State-Level Health Inspection Cut Point Table – September 2022

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is announcing an opportunity for the public to comment on CMS’ intention to collect information from the public. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (the PRA), federal agencies are required to publish notice in the Federal Register…… Continue reading CMS-R-5: Physicians Certifications/Recertificationsin Skilled Nursing Facilities Manual Instructions

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS has posted 2 updates for the LTCSP on 2 consecutive days this week: #3 in the 9/27/2022 update – 2022 Summary of Major Software Enhancements looks like this: The Revision History and the .zip folder containing the Survey Resources with Staff Vaccine are found beneath…… Continue reading CMS Updates the LTC Survey Process Documents Again

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare Monday, September 26, 2022 … Today, in another effort to improve nursing home transparency, safety and quality, and accountability, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is making additional data publicly available that provide more…… Continue reading Biden-Harris Administration Makes More Medicare Nursing Home Ownership Data Publicly Available, Improving Identification of Multiple Facilities Under Common Ownership

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare Today, September 26, 2022, CMS posted updates to the LTC Survey Process: The updates are found here. [Briggs subscribers to the 1766 … Survey Guide – Interpretive Guidelines for Long-Term Care and  1766E … Survey Guide – Interpretive Guidelines for Long-Term Care – eManual will receive…… Continue reading CMS Updates LTC Survey Process Documents

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare “As stated at the beginning of this letter, CMS will no longer support the Medicare RUGs systems after October 1, 2023. CMS is available to assist states as Medicare RUGs transition to PDPM. Initial readiness determinations should be made by the states in collaboration with their…… Continue reading Guidance on Nursing Facility State Plan Payment and Upper Payment Limit Approaches in Medicaid Relying on the Medicare Patient-Driven Payment Model (SMD 22-005)

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDPClinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare jRAVEN (version 1.8.2) is now available for download which contains the following updates:   The new MDS VUT, v3.6.1, updated to support the ICD Codes for I0020B that are in effect as of 10/1/2022, as well as the remapping of GG Discharge items when a dash is…… Continue reading jRAVEN v1.8.2 Released for October 1, 2022