Several LeadingAge Members Reprieved on SNF QRP Noncompliance
Several LeadingAge members who earlier this year were found out of compliance with the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Quality Reporting Program (QRP) have notified LeadingAge National that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) granted their request for reconsideration. These organizations therefore did not get the anticipated 2 percent cut in their Medicare fee-for-service reimbursement on Oct. 1, 2018.
LeadingAge met with CMS officials on behalf of these members and worked with them to help them make sense of the issues and reconsideration process and correct their data to achieve this positive outcome.
While LeadingAge is pleased with this good news for some of our members, we also want to remind all nursing home members what needs to be done to avoid future noncompliance notices. There are a few key steps that all SNFs should take to minimize the likelihood of being out of compliance with the SNF QRP for future years:
- SNFs should review their quarterly Minimum Data Set (MDS) submissions reports in the Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reporting (CASPER) system in advance of the prescribed deadlines. The next deadline is Nov. 15, 2018.
- SNFs should ensure that they are signed up to receive a quarterly email notice from CORMAC (a CMS contractor) with reminders of the data submission deadlines for those SNFs that are under-reporting. SNFs can sign up by providing their CMS certification number (CCN) and email address(es) to QRPHelp@cormac-corp.com. These emails are only sent to SNFs if they are not meeting all required reporting thresholds ahead of the submission deadline.
- SNFs should confirm that all staff doing MDS assessments are correctly completing Section GG to ensure compliance. Entering dashes for key items in Section GG contributed to findings of noncompliance with quality reporting requirements for fiscal year (FY) 2019. More information is available here.
- Additional training materials from a Sept. 12th training on Section GG and Section I are now available here.
Members with questions are encouraged to contact LeadingAge's Nicole Fallon at nfallon@leadingage.org.