Austin News

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representatives Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, calling on CMS to strengthen its proposed rule on nursing home ownership transparency to benefit patients. The lawmakers are urging CMS to incorporate the provisions they recommend and implement this long overdue rule.

“We appreciate CMS taking steps to implement this long overdue rule, which establishes requirements for the disclosure of information about the owners and operators of Medicare skilled nursing facilities and Medicaid nursing facilities, we believe that certain provisions of the proposed rule could be strengthened for the benefit of patients. Specifically, we urge you to clarify ownership definitions, establish strong auditing and enforcement measures, and ensure that comprehensive reporting information is made available to the public in an easily searchable format,” wrote the lawmakers. 

In May 2011, CMS published a proposed rule to implement nursing home ownership transparency requirements, requiring nursing homes to disclose any person or entity who exerts control over it, leases property to it, or offers administrative services to it. This rule was never finalized, and the lawmakers are calling on CMS to finalize this rule twelve years later. The rule comes as reports show private equity-owned nursing homes are associated with higher Medicare costs and increased emergency department visits and hospitalizations – underscoring the importance of nursing home ownership transparency.

“We support CMS’s proposal regarding the disclosure of ownership and management information when nursing homes initially enroll in Medicare or Medicaid and when revalidating their enrollment at a minimum of every five years, while reserving the right to require revalidation at any time. We also support CMS’s proposal to require the disclosure of the governing body, managing employees, and the organizational structure of the nursing home, as well as detailed information about any entity who exercises control over, is contracted for operational purposes, or provides financial management services to the nursing home,” continued the lawmakers. 

The lawmakers recommend the following provision that CMS consider strengthening its proposed rule, to benefit patients:

1. Require more robust ownership reporting requirements for Medicare-certified nursing homes.
2. Require standardized reporting requirements for Medicaid-certified nursing homes.
3. Require reporting of all related-parties in which nursing home owners have a direct or indirect stake.
4. Require a complete listing of each facility in a nursing home chain owned by the same parent company.
5. Provide clear reporting timelines and establish penalties for failure to report accurate information.
6. Establish a requirement for annual auditing to verify data accuracy.
7. Make these data available in a publicly searchable database.

To better understand how CMS intends to finalize this proposed rule, the lawmakers are asking it to answer a set of questions by June 1, 2023.

Read the full text of the letter here.

Original source can be found here.