I’ll grant you Will Rogers is getting a bit dated for a reference to a wiseman-comedian. But then again, some of the most profound statements originate in years with “B.C.” at the end of them, so there will be no steering clear of Rogers’ wisdom in this space today.
Providers could use some good, old discernment anyway. This is especially true in light of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma’s latest comments. In a blog post Wednesday she noted that her agency is proposing surveying top-performing facilities every 30 months — more than twice as long as the current interval for all nursing homes.
To that I refer to the Rogers famous quote, “It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.” Good reputations — and track records — would be at a premium under this CMS proposal.
Hopefully it would take more than a minute to lose one’s good standing, though given some of the severe lapses in judgment by the rare rogue caregiver, one never knows.
The point is that the good will be rewarded and the bad will get leaned on even more. In a nod to CMS, I have to agree that this idea has merit.
One only has to reach back about 10 years to then-LeadingAge President and CEO Larry Minnix’s famous declaration to find a corollary (slightly paraphrased here): “In the future, there will be only two kinds of nursing homes: the excellent and the out-of-business.”
Of course, this Will Rogers quoting can be instructive to providers in other ways. Given how CMS has decided to continually move the goalposts on Five-Star Ratings and quality benchmarking markers, “good” won’t always be good enough, something regulators openly admit.
That’s kind of eerily reminiscent of the Rogers chestnut, “Even though you are on the right track — you will get run over if you just sit there.”
Even CMS itself has taken this line of thought to heart. In Wednesday’s blog post, Verma noted that the agency has moved to a single, computer-based survey process and paired it with updated guidance.
Providers would be wise to firmly note this change and act on it with something similar for themselves.
Follow Executive Editor James M. Berklan @JimBerklan.
