Regulatory Compliance
70th AHCA/NCAL Convention and Expo
Civil money penalties (CMPs) remain one of the most frequently cited—and dreaded—sanctions among the enforcement remedies available to CMS under federal statutes and regulations governing SNF surveys and enforcement. However, under CMS’s current State Operations Manual and guidance to state survey agencies, providers can shorten periods of noncompliance and avoid large CMPs, even in cases of immediate jeopardy, by addressing potential deficient practices and events before a survey. In doing so, providers can achieve “past noncompliance” and turn large, daily CMPs into a one-time CMP covering all days of alleged noncompliance for a given outcome or event.
In this session, we’ll review the required elements for an “acceptable” allegation of compliance (AOC) plan of correction (POC) for jeopardy-level deficiencies, and CMS’s changing interpretations of these requirements. Attendees will learn how to develop and document, before survey, acceptable POCs to show corrected past noncompliance, and avoid large daily CMPs that can span weeks or months.
The session will also focus on creating an acceptable AOC for immediate jeopardy citations during a survey to obtain past noncompliance, based upon CMS’s revised Appendix Q. We’ll discuss the elements surveyors look for to cite corrected past noncompliance, strategize about what constitutes “sufficient evidence to support that the facility corrected the noncompliance,” and walk through development of actual POCs that have been accepted as sufficient and led to past noncompliance determinations.