Staffing takes a front seat when driving quality of care

Dec 12, 2019 | Five Star Staffing Ratings, Nursing HPRD & Turnover

Staffing takes a front seat when driving quality of care

…In CMS’s new rating methodology, facilities are rewarded for staffing more RNs — and punished when they don’t have enough. Ratings on the staffing domain are based on two measures: the number of RN hours per resident per day and total nursing hours (combined RN, LPN, and nurse aide hours) per resident per day, all pulled from quarterly Payroll-Based Journal reports.

Both the RN score and the total nurse score are rated, and the two scores are averaged together to determine the total score, giving the RN score a higher weight…

In this way, not only does CMS penalize facilities for going without a RN for three days, but it is demonstrating significant preference for RNs by leveraging RN staffing scores to directly influence the facility’s overall rating.

FROM

McKnights

PUBLISHED

December 12, 2019

SOURCE

Caulfield, Chris. “Staffing Takes a Front Seat When Driving Quality of Care.” McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, 12 Dec. 2019, www.mcknights.com/marketplace/staffing-takes-a-front-seat-when-driving-quality-of-care.

More News in this PBJ Topic

Ask the payment expert …. about the total nurse staffing measure

Q: What is the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Payment Total Nurse Staffing Measure?
A: The Total Nursing Hours Per Resident Day Measure uses auditable electronic data reported to the Payroll-Based Journal system to calculate total nursing hours per resident day. It is one of two new measures that will begin affecting payments in the FY 2026 SNF VBP program year, the other being SNF Healthcare Associated Infections Requiring Hospitalization.

read more

States get needed nurse aide waiver relief but workers’ fates uncertain

Skilled nursing providers in at least 15 states averted the loss of thousands of frontline workers Thursday, when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services let expire a blanket national waiver allowing the use of non-certified nurse aides. Those states had been awarded new waivers through an application process, meaning they demonstrated testing backlogs or other delays that kept providers from converting a large share of temporary nurse aides into permanent certified nurse assistants.

read more

Medicaid nursing facility payment approaches

CMS encourages states to
assess their approach to payments to long-term care providers and utilize flexibilities provided
by section 1902(a)(30)(A) of the Social Security Act (the Act) in establishing Medicaid base and
supplemental payments, as appropriate, to provide adequate, performance-driven nursing facility
rates

read more

Research shows COVID-19 vaccination mandates don’t negatively affect nursing home staffing

State COVID-19 vaccination mandates increased vaccinations among direct caregivers without negatively affecting staffing levels, according to the results of a study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum.

The researchers studied vaccination rates and staffing shortages that were reported via the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network from June 6, 2021, through Nov. 14, 2021.

read more