Changes to Nursing Home Compare & 5-Star Expected This Year

AHCA recently notified State Affiliates of a meeting between CMS and stakeholder groups regarding upcoming changes to Nursing Home Compare and the 5-Star Rating.  AHCA reported the following:

Upcoming changes to the Nursing Home Compare website, expected to be implemented this summer, in addition to updating the look, feel and some functionalities of the website,  include:

•    Posting of survey deficiency reports (2567 forms), beginning for surveys conducted in calendar year 2011.  Until CMS has access to Plans of Correction electronically, anticipated in 2014, this information will not be reflected on the website.
•    Reporting on the new MDS 3.0-based quality measures, including 2 new measures of off-label use of antipsychotic drugs (long-stay prevalence and short-stay incidence)
•    Inclusion of ownership information.
•    Reporting on physical therapist staffing levels.

Longer-term considerations for future enhancements currently in the early phases of exploration include reporting on special capabilities and services offered by facilities to better support consumer identification of facilities that can meet specialized needs and reporting of consumer satisfaction information.  No information was provided as to the expected timeline for potential incorporation of these data.


The Five-Star Rating system will also be modified this summer to incorporate the new quality measures and adjust expected staffing calculations based on MDS 3.0 data.  The approach to revising these measures and calculations has been designed to transition with minimal change to the overall distribution of ratings. CMS also reported that overall trends in Five-Star ratings since the debut of the system in 2008 have shown improvement, with an increasing proportion of facilities receiving 4- and 5-star ratings and fewer receiving 1-star ratings.

IHCA will continue to provide updates as CMS shares additional information and firms up their timeline for rolling out these changes.  Provider preview reports are currently available via the CASPER system.