Home Health & Hospice Week

Much like the Special Focus Program, another nursing home-focused fraud-fighting initiative may soon migrate to home health and hospice agencies.

The Department of Health & Human Services is “requiring nursing homes to disclose additional ownership and management information to [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] and states and making this information public,” HHS says in a Nov. 15 release. “Recent studies … show that private equity ownership is associated with poorer staffing conditions and resulting decreases in quality of care,” HHS maintains. “Today’s final rule includes definitions of private equity and real estate investment trusts, setting the stage for identifying whether a nursing home belongs to one of these types of owners,” it says.

“CMS is committed to leveraging our tools to improve safety and quality of care in nursing homes,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure says in the release. “By strengthening our ability to examine nursing home ownership, including private equity and real estate investment trusts, we can improve transparency for the people we serve and their loved ones, researchers, and regulators, and enable better informed decisions about nursing home care,” Brooks-LaSure says.

“Taking steps to help consumers to learn more about the owners ... will allow them to make the choice that best meets their needs,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra says in the release.

The 93-page rule scheduled for publication in the Nov. 17 Federal Register is at https://public-inspection.federal­register.gov/2023-25408.pdf.