CMS Announces Updates to Five Star Quality Rating System

CMS will resume updating health inspections, quality measures with January 2021 refresh.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on December 4 that the Five Star Quality Rating system will resume all updates with the January 2021 refresh. Due to the public health emergency (PHE) first issued in March 2020, the 3 domains of the rating system had previously been held constant at varying times throughout the past 9 months as a result of changes to health inspections and certain temporary regulatory waivers.

During this time, CMS also unveiled the new Care Compare site, which officially replaced all legacy sites, including Nursing Home Compare, on December 1, 2020. Complete updates to the Five Star Quality Rating system will be available at the new Care Compare site on January 27, 2021