Memorandum Summary

• Post Performance Data for Nursing Home Chains – “Chains” refers to groups of Medicare-certified nursing homes that are connected through common owners, and operators (also called “affiliated entities”). CMS will begin posting aggregated performance information for these nursing homes on Nursing Home Care Compare in a consumer-friendly format.
• Drop Third Cycle Standard Surveys from the Nursing Home Care Compare Health Inspection Rating – To help ensure the Nursing Home Care Compare health inspection rating more accurately reflects current performance in nursing homes, CMS will be removing any inspection in the third cycle, meaning the oldest surveys, from the rating calculation.
• Incorporate Updated Long-Stay Antipsychotic Measure on Nursing Home Care Compare – To improve measure accuracy CMS will update the quality measure assessing the number of long-stay residents receiving antipsychotic medications to include Medicare and Medicaid claims and encounter data, in addition to Minimum Data Set (MDS) data currently used in the existing measure.
• Removing COVID-19 Vaccination Measures – CMS will be removing the resident and staff COVID-19 Vaccination measures from the main profile page of each nursing home.