Society Urges CMS to Clarify Nursing Home Ownership Transparency Rule

The Society recently submitted a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed rule entitled,

Disclosure of Ownership and Additional Disclosable Parties Information for Skilled Nursing Facilities and Nursing Facilities. The proposed rule would require nursing homes enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid to disclose and submit certain ownership, managerial, and other information to CMS and state Medicaid agencies.

The Society supports efforts to increase transparency in nursing home ownership and related party transactions to help prevent unqualified and potentially fraudulent individuals and entities from entering this setting. The letter advocates for more transparency in line with a recently passed House of Delegates resolution (D-22) that was adopted as policy by the AMDA Board of Directors, which asked the Society to endorse “efforts to increase transparency in nursing home ownership and related party transactions.” Further, the policy asks the Society to work with other stakeholder organizations and legislators to require transparency in nursing facility cost reports, including all related parties under a chain's corporate umbrella.

The proposed rule indicated that, in addition to ownership information, nursing homes would be required to report out on certain ownership, managerial, and other information such as members of the governing body, officer, member, partner, trustee, or managing employee. The Society asked for CMS to clarify and provide more guidance on the definition used to describe “managing employees.” The current definition of “managing employee” includes general manger, business manager, administrator, director, or other individual that exercises operational or managerial control over the facility. The Society asked that CMS not only clarify that definition but explicitly include in it the title of “medical director” in addition to the other roles listed.

The Society continues to encourage public reporting of nursing home medical directors and also supports legislation (H.R. 177, The Nursing Home Disclosure Act) that would support this goal by having medical directors listed as managing employees and publicly reported.