Q: I understand that state surveyors will begin focusing more on emergency preparedness. Why so much attention on this issue now?
A: In a recent addition to its work plan, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General announced it would begin evaluating processes state surveyors use to oversee nursing home emergency preparedness. Officials will be looking for promising practices, challenges or limitations.
CMS Conditions of Participation obligate nursing homes to comply with all applicable federal, state and local emergency preparedness requirements. Specifically, nursing homes must establish and maintain an emergency preparedness program that meets requirements.
However, due to recent emergencies, including the COVID pandemic, CMS plans to bolster state survey agency reviews of nursing home adherence. Simply put, after more than three years of almost constant micromanagement of all aspects of infection control and emergency preparedness, it has been determined that such supervision has not been enough!
Even more stringent oversight and micromanagement will continue.
This most recent foray stems from a September 2022 OIG report, which found a large nursing home chain may not have complied with certain preparedness requirements. The OIG reported “16 of 24 nursing homes reviewed had at least one possible deficiency related to emergency preparedness.” The nursing homes could have had upward of 20 deficiencies related to annual reviews of the preparedness plans and risk assessments.
As a practical matter, long-term care facilities should expect that they may be subject to more stringent annual reviews and enforcement procedures by state survey agencies as they react to the increased oversight and audits by CMS.
Please send your legal questions to Norris Cunningham at [email protected].
