Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

OIG: Nurse aid registries are coming up short on the facts

Facilities that rely on state nurse-aide registries to provide accurate information about employees may need to proceed with caution.

Reality check: States do not properly update the record for one in four nurse aides charged with abuse or neglect. Example: Employees charged in one state often hold active certification in others, a Feb. 22 HHS Office of Inspector General inspection report found.

More than half of state respondents reported failure to remove records of inactive nurse aides from registries. Many said they depended solely on the nurse aides themselves for up-to-date employment information, the OIG says.

What's in the future: In response to the report, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services offered additional guidance and improvement projects in states with the most serious registry problems. The agency stopped short of endorsing the OIG's call for legislative changes to create a national nurse registry, however.

Instead: Nurse registries will improve as a direct result of the newly created Automated Complaint Tracking System (ACTS) which logs, manages and tracks the progress of investigations into resident complaints, CMS said. The agency also predicts that if the upcoming background check demonstration for long-term-care facilities spreads nationwide, "the environment of the nurse aide registry would change dramatically."

To read "Nurse Aide Registries: State Compliance And Practices" (OEI-07-03-00380), go to www.oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-07-03-00380.pdf.