Special Focus Facilities List Released on Nursing Home Compare

VHCA (11/30/2007)

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has publicly reported a list of 54 Special Focus Facilities (SFFs) on the Nursing Home Compare website.  The list was culled from more than 125 facilities included in a CMS’ Special Focus Facility program.  These SFFs were identified as consistently providing poor quality of care, yet periodically instituting enough improvements that they would pass one quality survey only to fail the next.  The facilities demonstrated a 'yo-yo' compliance history giving rise to repeated cycle of serious deficiencies.  The publicly reported SSF list identifies these facilities as “not showing significant progress,” which would lead to graduation from the CMS program.

AHCA has informed state affiliates that after with working with four facilities on the list to obtain sufficient information demonstrating progress evidenced by the facility’s most recent survey resulting in deficiencies no higher than an “E” to support removal from the list, CMS agreed to remove the four facilities from its public list of Special Focus Facilities.   AHCA continues to press CMS for transparency surrounding this initiative, including providing the formula used to identify potential Special Focus Facilities, as well as the exact criteria necessary for a facility to be removed from both the posted list and the Special Focus Facility program.

The list of the Special Focus Facilities is available on the CMS website.