3 Things You Need to Know About Care Compare (formerly Nursing Home Compare)
Published December 11, 2020
While all of our hopes are rising for a fresh start to 2021, the star ratings on Care Compare may be bringing new challenges to a number of SNF providers.
Last week, CMS announced that they will resume calculating the Quality Measure and Survey components of the Five Star rating system, much of which has been frozen due to the pandemic. This is amidst the huge undertaking of converting the Nursing Home Compare website as we know it and changing the name to Care Compare effective December 1st.
Here’s what the stars will hold as you greet the New Year!
- Staffing: In case you missed it, submission of staffing data through the Payroll Based Journal system was reinstated on June 25, 2020 beginning with Q2 2020 and CMS resumed updating the staffing domain of the Five Star system in October 2020. The next PBJ submission for calendar quarter 4 staffing will be due Feb. 14, 2021.
- Survey: During the pandemic, CMS has only been posting citations from the focused inspection control inspections on Nursing Home Compare while holding the survey star component constant. However, in last week’s announcement, CMS informed providers that the survey star component will be updated on January 27, 2021 and will include focused infection control inspection findings. In addition, CMS has instructed State Survey Agencies to resume all surveys as soon as possible (QSO-20-35-ALL).
- Quality Measures: CMS feels that the data needed to calculate the quality measures used in the Five Star rating has been sufficiently submitted despite the waiver that removed the requirement to submit MDS data timely during the pandemic. Therefore, the quality measures (including the claims based measures) will also be updated on January 27, 2021.
We encourage you to review the data that will populate these three publicly reported Five Star rating components to identify improvement opportunities. If you need assistance or guidance on understanding the Five Star methodology, please contact us so we can tell you how we can help you improve your rating.