Home Health & Hospice Week

Nursing homes can ban who they want.

If you have a showdown over who will test your staff for facility access, you might lose even if you win.

Why? In guidance released last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services advised nursing homes to test “all nursing home staff (including volunteers and vendors who are in the facility on a weekly basis)” every week, in line with Centers for Disease Control & Prevention guidelines.

The problem: “Some hospices are reporting that the nursing homes are insisting that the hospices test their staff going in the nursing home at the hospice’s expense/with tests

procured by the hospice,” reports the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

The solution: “It is the nursing home’s responsibility to test the hospice personnel,” NAHC maintains in its member newsletter. “NAHC has confirmed with CMS that there is no CMS guidance or expectation that the hospice provides or pays for these tests.”

But despite that fact, hospices may want to consider the implications of insisting on the nursing home’s testing responsi­bility. “The nursing home does have the ability to decide who it will/will not allow into its facility,” NAHC allows. “It may decide that if the hospice is not willing to test its staff with its own tests or tests the nursing home prescribes and requires the hospice to pay for, the nursing home can restrict the hospice’s access.”

Take heed: “NAHC continues to receive reports that some nursing homes have decided to cancel contracts with some or all hospices because of the pressures the [public health emergency] has brought on in dealing with hospices and other outside vendors,” the trade group says. “This is within the nursing home’s authority.”