CMS Proposes a Host of Changes to Nursing Home Requirements for Participation

This provision of the Requirements for Participation requires facilities to post in the facility daily nurse staffing data and to retain that data for a period of 18 months. Industry stakeholders commented to CMS that the payroll-based journal (“PBJ”) provisions, which require nurse staffing data to be reported electronically and posted on the Nursing Home Compare website, accomplish the same goal and thus are redundant.

CMS, however, disagrees, pointing out that the PBJ data are retrospective whereas the daily nurse staffing data present information in real time to keep residents and their families apprised of number of staff in the facility during each shift.

While CMS, therefore, declined to eliminate the requirements of Section 483.35(g), the agency proposes to reduce the timeframe for the retention of the nurse staffing data from 18 months to 15 months. Such a reduction offers little in the way of burden reduction.