States failed to refer 7.6% of nursing home cases involving deficiencies to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to a report released this week by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

These cases required enforcement action because they were out of compliance with Medicare standards.

States’ difficulty identifying historical patterns of noncompliance at facilities made up a large portion of these non-referrals. These cases may also have come about because attempted referrals did not adequately alert CMS regional offices that a case warranted enforcement. Human error and other procedural problems likely resulted in other non-referrals.

See the full text of the OIG report at: http://www.oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-03-00400.pdf.