The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is giving nursing home providers the opportunity to participate in the development of a new quality improvement initiative that was mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While few people expected any issues with the implementation of the provisions in the ACA that affected long-term care providers, last week’s Supreme Court decision removed any specter of doubt. One of those provisions was for CMS to establish standards related to Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) and provide technical assistance to facilities on the development of best QAPI practices. To best understand providers’ issues with QAPI programs, CMS has decided to randomly select 4,200 nursing home providers in two waves.
The first wave will roll out this summer. The Nursing Home Quality Improvement Questionnaire (NHQIQ) will be submitted to randomly selected providers to help establish a baseline of QAPI practices in facilities and gather information on the challenges and barriers to the implementation of effective QAPI programs. The NHQIQ is estimated to take approximately twenty (20) minutes to complete, and the facilties’ responses will remain anonymous.
The second wave of the survey will take place from 2013-2014 as an assessment of the development of QAPI programs. Additionally, the second NHQIQ wave will assist CMS with determining what types of technical assistance to make available to nursing homes in the future, and determine the potential impact of technical assistance in advancing QAPI programs in nursing homes.
The NHQIQ will be available electronically as well as on paper; selected providers are encouraged to participate to help CMS understand provider needs in the development of QAPI standards.
Should you have any questions, please contact:
Todd Selby at 317.977.1440 or tselby@hallrender.com;
Brian Jent at 317.977.1402 or bjent@hallrender.com; or
David Bufford at 502.568.9368 or dbufford@hallrender.com,
or your regular Hall Render attorney.
