The federal government has put 134 nursing homes on a list of long-term care facilities that it wants to improve systemic issues or face expulsion from the Medicaid program.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Thursday said it was heightening efforts to bring more attention to quality deficiencies at long-term care facilities on its "special focus facility," or SFF, list.
The pressure is important because Medicaid is a significant payer for long-term care facilities, and CMS is using its financial leverage to bring about improvements in operations at poor-quality homes.
Last November, CMS began highlighting nursing homes with serious quality issues on its Nursing Home Compare Web site. It's bringing more attention to facilities with a history of quality concerns by denoting whether a home is or has ever been on its SFF list.
"Today's expansion of information on Nursing Home Compare will give beneficiaries a more complete picture of a nursing home's history of providing care," said Kerry Weems, CMS' acting administrator.
CMS said it's taking the step because many facilities with quality problems often take just enough steps to pass muster on subsequent inspections, only to fall back and fail future inspections, often for the same issues that were initially discovered.
"Such facilities with a 'yo-yo' compliance history rarely addressed underlying systemic problems that were giving rise to repeated cycles of serious deficiencies," Weems said.
CMS said it works closely with states to select SFF "participants." As they improve their quality of care and leave the program, new homes are added to the list. Homes that fail to improve are terminated from the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
CMS expects that its Nursing Home Compare Web site will help families make better purchasing decisions about long-term care. Information on the site includes performance scores on quality measures, staffing information, and a three-year history of the home's health, safety and fire inspection reports. CMS said it intends to update the site quarterly.