Nursing Homes Stories - Aging News Alert

N. California Nursing Home Cited 29 Times for Illegal Evictions

The facility was in the process of being sold in 2015 when word spread that the new owner wanted to “convert the facility to a sub-acute setting” and “didn’t want long-term care residents.”

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‘Nursing Home Compare’ Adds Three New Quality Measures

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this week added six new quality measures to its consumer-based Nursing Home Compare website. Three of these six new quality measures are based on Medicare-claims data submitted by hospitals, which is significant because this is the first time CMS is including quality measures that are not based solely on data that are self-reported by nursing homes.

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CMS Makes SNF-related Data Publicly Available

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) releases a public data set that provides information on services provided to Medicare beneficiaries by skilled nursing facilities (SNFs).

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CMS Releases Skilled Nursing Facility Data

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a public data set containing information on services provided to Medicare beneficiaries by skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). The Skilled Nursing Facility Utilization and Payment Public Use File (SNF PUF) contains information on utilization, payments, and submitted charges organized by provider, state, and resource utilization group (RUG).

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Group’s SNF Members Score Higher in Lowering Antipsychotics

If you’re with a skilled nursing facility that happens to be a member of the American Health Care Association (AHCA), chances are your SNF is among those that have lowered antipsychotic usage by nearly 30 percent nationwide, thus out performing non-member SNFs.

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CMS Issues Annual Report on Nursing Facility Initiative

The three-year-old initiative is designed to test ways to reduce avoidable hospitalizations among long-stay nursing facility residents. For such individuals, avoidable hospitalizations can be dangerous, disruptive, and disorienting. CMS research has estimated that 45% of hospitalizations among nursing facility residents could be prevented with well-targeted interventions.

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Calif. Accused of Violating Laws Protecting Nursing Home Residents

A newly filed lawsuit by a nonprofit advocacy group alleges that California nursing homes have been sending Medi-Cal residents to acute care hospitals and refusing to allow them to return to the nursing homes where they reside. The nursing homes allegedly are doing this in violation of the law in order to increase revenues and make space for more lucrative Medicare and private pay residents, the lawsuit says.

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Feds Join Three False Claims Lawsuits against SNF Operator

The government’s complaint alleges that parent company exerted significant pressure on its SNFs to meet unrealistic financial goals that resulted in the provision of medically unreasonable, unnecessary and unskilled services to Medicare patients. The company allegedly set these aggressive, prospective corporate targets for the highest Medicare reimbursement rates to significantly increase its revenues without regard for patients’ actual clinical needs

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Calif. Law Cracks Down on Assisted Living Facility Licensing

The new law requires applicants who are seeking a license to run such a facility to submit information on ownership and prior ownership of any type of facility, in any state, including a history of compliance with applicable laws. It also requires the state’s Department of Social Services to crosscheck applicant information with the California Department of Public Health and allows DSS to deny or revoke a license for failure to disclose the required information.

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Latest Edition of SNF Cost Comparison Report Now Available

For 30 years this important report has been used by leaders of skilled nursing facilities to help them better understand their financial condition. It provides a critical tool used to discuss and explore the magnitude of any variances in cost structure or operations compared to similar organizations.

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