As promised in the January 7, 2022 QSO Memo,”Nursing Home Staff Turnover and Weekend Staffing Levels.” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is moving forward with factoring additional staffing information into its methodology for calculating the Five Star Quality Rating. These updates will be effective in the July 2022 Care Compare Refresh, per an announcement made yesterday, July 7, 2022.
Per a CMS Post-Acute Quality Reporting Programs Email (7/7/2022):
Staffing Measure Rating Changes with the July 2022 Refresh
In January 2022, CMS began posting new weekend staffing and staff turnover measures on Care Compare (CMS memorandum QSO 22-08-NH). These measures will be included in Nursing Home Five Star Quality Rating System methodology starting with the July 2022 Care Compare refresh.
In addition to existing measures of registered nurse (RN) and total nurse hours per resident per day, the new staffing rating methodology will include the following measures:
- Total nurse staffing hours per resident per day weekends;
- Total nurse staff turnover within a given year;
- Registered nurse (RN) turnover with a given year; and
- Number of administrators who have left the nursing home within a given year.
Each nursing home’s performance on the staffing measures are converted to points, then summed and compared to thresholds to determine the staffing star rating. Additionally, to emphasize the importance of staffing, we will no longer add one star to the overall rating of nursing homes that have a four-star staffing rating. Rather, only nursing homes with a five-star staffing rating will be rewarded with an increase in their overall star rating. Additional details regarding the staffing rating methodology are included in the Nursing Home Five-Star Quality Rating Technical Users’ Guide.