On a recent flight, I sat next to an attorney whose principal focus was compliance. It turned out that we were both on our way to speak at events in the same popular Florida conference destination. She...
Which matters most: Social media or Five-Star?
By
Steven Littlehale
May 27, 2022
Recently my colleague Ken Kelley, MS, OTR/L, RAC-CT, a clinical consultant/reimbursement specialist, posited something about Five-Star ratings that I hadn’t considered. He suggested that, in general,...
Additional staffing metrics point to organizational stability
By
Steven Littlehale
Mar 04, 2022
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, through its consumer‐facing website, has made additional nursing home staffing data available. Doing so during a public health emergency, when the industry...
Increase your occupancy now
By
Steven Littlehale
Aug 02, 2021
Preparing for a presentation is always fun for me, especially when it involves original research. In anticipation of Reimbur$ement-Con, and my session “The Unexpected Nemesis,” we took a deep dive...
The truth in the stars
By
Jessica Curtis
Jun 07, 2021
Can a one-star skilled nursing facility be the same as a five-star facility? It depends on your zip code. When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assigns the health inspection...
CMS: Lower COVID rates linked to higher nursing home quality ratings
By
Alicia Lasek
Jun 02, 2021
Higher facility star ratings are tied to lower COVID transmission rates and fewer deaths, according to the agency’s chief medical officer and director of its Center for Clinical Standards and Quality.
How to make payroll-based journaling easy
By
Thomas Jegou
Jun 01, 2021
As reporting standards go, Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) reporting stands out as notoriously difficult. It involves a lot of labor and can be prone to ratings-endangering errors. Meeting the PBJ reporting...
Five-Star surveys: Changed forever?
By
Spencer Blackman
Feb 08, 2021
When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unlocked survey ratings for the first time since April, we analysts dove into the numbers expecting big changes. But as an earlier McKnight’s article...
Reaching for 5 stars? Leverage technology for staffing compliance
By
Marina Aslanyan
Nov 23, 2020
As additional waves of COVID-19 bear down on the long-term care and post-acute industry, it has never been more important for operators to comply with staffing regulations that best protect our most vulnerable...
Five-Star is anything but frozen
By
Steven Littlehale
Dec 13, 2017
The day after Thanksgiving, CMS further defined its intensions with the Five-Star Quality Rating System; more specifically how the new survey process and derivative data will be used in its calculation...