How To Boost Your Nursing Home Star Rating

CMS Updates Staffing & Turnover Measures

Sep 21, 2023

the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued updates to guidance on minimum health and safety standards that Long-Term Care (LTC) facilities (often called “nursing homes”) must meet to participate in Medicare and Medicaid.

CMS also updated and developed new guidance in the State Operations Manual (SOM) to address issues that significantly affect residents of LTC facilities.

U.S. News & World Report nursing home ratings poke holes in CMS ratings

Nov 23, 2022

U.S. News & World Report nursing home ratings poke holes in CMS ratingsU.S. News & World Report recently released its 2022-2023 nursing home ratings, which revealed major differences in its assessments compared with the Centers for Medicare...

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

Nov 11, 2022

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.

Thousands of nursing homes face lower Five-Star ratings

Jul 31, 2022

New Five-Star scoring metrics could penalize an estimated 10% to 16% of providers who have relied on staffing strengths to drive their overall ratings.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Thursday published new guidance for calculating staffing stars in the public-facing rating system. It incorporates total nurse staffing on weekends; annual RN and total nurse turnover; and administrator turnover.

To Advance Information on Quality of Care, CMS Makes Nursing Home Staffing Data Available

Jan 30, 2022

the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will begin posting for the first time ever, staff turnover rates and weekend staff levels for nursing homes on the Medicare.gov Care Compare website today

Staffing Rating Under 4 Stars? Review PBJ Data; Set and Monitor Goals

Sep 20, 2021

Staffing is difficult—that was a defining truth for nursing homes before the COVID-19 public health emergency created a full-blown staffing crisis that still is harming providers throughout healthcare. So, it may seem like the wrong time for directors of nursing services (DNSs) to pay much attention to the staffing domain in the Five-Star Quality Rating System.

“However, all of the Five-Star data—the staffing, health inspections, and quality measures domains—funnels into multiple parts of a facility’s life,” says Shelly Maffia, RN, MSN, MBA, NHA, QCP, CHC, director of regulatory services for Proactive Medical Review and Consulting in Evansville, IN.

5 Star, QMs, and PBJ Data Updates

Jul 27, 2021

5 Star, QM’s and PBJ data updates have been released. Last week, we shared that QRP’s were released for review. All are critical reporting which impacts our 2022 FY reimbursement and our publicly displayed information on Care Compare. There are a few small windows of time for review and correction if needed.

Marys Take: Maggots, Rape and Yet Five Stars: How U.S. Ratings of Nursing Homes Mislead the Public

Mar 16, 2021

Nursing homes have manipulated the influential star system in ways that have masked deep problems — and left them unprepared for Covid-19. The piece, as you may have already deduced speaks to Nursing Home Compare, the Five-Star Rating System and Payroll Based Journal (PBJ).

CMS Announces Updates to Five Star Quality Rating System

Nov 30, 2020

CMS announced on December 4 that the Five Star Quality Rating system will resume all updates with the January 2021 refresh. Due to the public health emergency (PHE) first issued in March 2020, the 3 domains of the rating system had previously been held constant at varying times throughout the past 9 months as a result of changes to health inspections and certain temporary regulatory waivers.

Cutting through the COVID staffing star confusion

Oct 14, 2020

COVID-19 has dominated the news — and the senior care industry. Over the past few months, CMS has issued waivers, updated waivers, and repealed waivers. Amidst this COVID chaos is confusion over what PBJ Staffing data is currently posted on Nursing Home Compare. Is it Q1?…Q2? When do you see Q3? What about Q4?

Top 9 Things to Remember About PBJ

Feb 5, 2020

Accurate PBJ reporting can impact your Five-Star rating, referral patterns, census stability and overall long-term viability.

Staffing takes a front seat when driving quality of care

Dec 12, 2019

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