CMS Response to Public Comments Received for CMS-10622
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) received one comment from a general member of the public related to CMS-10622. This is the reconciliation of that comment.
Comment:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) received a comment from a member of the public that, “Nursing homes across the United States are in a state of chronic neglect. There needs to be more incentive for owners of nursing homes to invest money in these facilities. To hire more competent staff and maintain and upgrade the buildings. No initiative will work until nursing home owners are motivated to spend a little money on these facilities. Penalizing or closing facilities will only hurt the residents. There is no other place for some of these people.”
Response:
CMS thanks the commenter for discussing some of the challenges that nursing homes face in providing care with existing resources and the important function that nursing homes serve in meeting residents’ needs. We would like to clarify that this federal register announcement supports an evaluation of the Quality Improvement Network Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) Program activities within nursing homes and will not result in penalizing or closing nursing home facilities. Data collected from nursing homes will be grouped and not attributed to individual nursing homes.
The QIN-QIO program does make efforts to align with payment policies and incentives administered by other parts of CMS. In that light, the commenter may be interested in learning that another part of CMS has recently finalized a Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing Program which is intended to incentivize quality. A description of this program may be found at: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/Value-Based-Programs/Other-VBPs/SNF-VBP.html We have forwarded your comment to the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing Program for its consideration in future policy development.
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | CMS Response to Public Comments Received for CMS-10622 |
| Subject | Response to comments on Nursing Home Administrator Survey |
| Author | CMS |
| Last Modified By | George, Signe [USA] |
| File Modified | 2016-11-03 |
| File Created | 2016-10-27 |