CMS released updated guidance June 29 on minimum health and safety standards that long-term care facilities must meet to participate in Medicare and Medicaid.
Key issues in the updated guidance include abuse and neglect, mental health, substance use disorders, nurse staffing and resident rights. The agency also updated and developed new guidance in the State Operations Manual.
"As the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted, we have a pressing moral responsibility to ensure that residents of long-term care facilities are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve," Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, CMS administrator, said in a news release shared with Becker's. "CMS is proud to be leading President Biden’s initiative to improve the safety and quality of care in the nation’s nursing homes, and this set of improvements is our next step toward that goal."