South Carolina Nursing Home Blog : South Carolina Nursing Home Lawyer & Attorney : Poliakoff & Associates Law Firm : Elderly Care, Senior Care

Mcknight's had a recent article about the changes to the CMS ranking website.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced a number of updates to its Web site. These include new information about the Five-Star rating system for nursing homes, which became available Thursday, May 28.

Five-Star provider preview reports were released May 20. Nursing home providers can access that information through the Minimum Data Set (MDS) State Welcome pages that are available at the state servers for the submission of MDS data, according to CMS.

May's Five-Star data was added to the Nursing Home Compare Web site on May 28. For more information, visit www.medicare.gov/NHcompare.

CMS has also updated the information under its FAQ section of the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) portion of its Web site. On May 19, CMS added answers to questions such as "Why is CMS using recovery audit contractors?" and "Who should providers contact with questions concerning recovery audit contractor communications?" For more information, visit www.cms.hhs.gov/RAC.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Staffing became an issue in the recent Kentucky Governor's race.  Democrat Steve Beshear said that Kentucky needs to consider requiring minimum staffing levels at nursing homes, but Gov. Ernie Fletcher said the corporate owners should be allowed to determine how many nurses they hire.

Last night, Beshear said Fletcher's administration has failed to protect seniors, citing a news story that indicated the number of citations for nursing homes has declined since the Republican became governor in 2003.

"We don't have enough inspectors to go and enforce" laws that apply to nursing homes, said Beshear, a Democrat.

"I think it's time to look at minimum staffing numbers," he said. "We've got to make sure the profit motive doesn't interfere with the care motive."

Fletcher said the state doesn't need to set minimum numbers of nurses for nursing homes saying that the state can ensure adequate care in other ways.

"We've closed nursing homes that needed to be closed," he said.

See article here.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks