The Trump administration needs to change how it regulates nursing homes in light of a report that found most homes overstated their staff numbers, Democrat Ron Wyden said Tuesday.
The Oregon senator sent a letter Tuesday to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma calling for reform of the star rating used to judge nursing homes as a response to the New York Times report published last month.
“Caregivers of residents described the consequences of poor staffing on patient care and the disconnect between staffing levels reported to CMS and actual staffing levels in the facility,” Wyden wrote, referring to the story. “It’s clear the manner by which CMS measures nursing home quality needs updating.”
Currently each nursing home is rated on a scale of one to five stars. The rating is based on three factors: staff, health inspections, and quality measures.
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said that the New York Times story calls into question how CMS gets data for quality measures, which is self-reported by nursing homes. He cited the problems with getting staff data detailed in the New York Times story as a reason to fear that other data might be bad.
The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, required CMS to collect staffing data using electronic payroll data instead of self-reporting. Nursing homes have been reporting the information this new way since July 2016, the letter said.
The story found major inaccuracies with the way nursing homes self-reported the data before the automated system was put in place. Of the more than 14,000 nursing homes submitting payroll records, the Times found that seven in 10 had lower staffing reported by the automated system compared to the older self-reported system.
Wyden asked Verma to provide information on the safeguards CMS has to ensure nursing homes provide accurate information. He also wants to know what the agency will do if it receives inaccurate data for either staffing or quality.
