CMS has released fiscal year 2025 guidance for its State Performance Standards System. The SPSS oversees the performance of the state survey agencies that ensure Medicare and Medicaid providers and facilities are compliant with federal requirements.
The fiscal 2025 guidance includes revisions and additions to last year's performance measures, according to an Oct. 23 CMS memo.
Here are eight things to know about the fiscal 2025 SPSS measures:
- The guidance consists of 13 measures across three domains: Survey and Intake Process; Survey and Intake Quality; and Noncompliance Resolution.
- The Survey and Intake Process measures cover:
- Surveys of nursing home special focus facilities
- Use of the immediate jeopardy template
- Immediate jeopardy intakes overdue for investigation
- EMTALA complaints prioritized as IJ and Non-IJ High conducted within the State Operations Manual time frame
- Intakes prioritized as immediate jeopardy started within the required time period
- Off-hour surveys for nursing homes
- Frequency of nursing home recertification surveys
- Frequency of Tier 1 acute and continuing care provider recertification surveys
- The Survey and Intake Quality measures cover:
- Assessment of survey practice in accordance with federal standards using focused concern surveys
- Assessment of deficiency identification using federal comparative surveys
- Nursing home tags downgraded/removed by informal dispute resolution or independent informal dispute resolution and unresolved IDRs/IIDRs
- Nursing home recertification survey deficiency citation and tasks investigated
- The Noncompliance Resolution measure covers timeliness of on-site revisits.
- Performance measures will be scored as "met," "partially met" and "not met." State Survey Agencies are required to develop and implement action plans for measures scored as "not met" at the end of fiscal 2025 and measures scored as "partially met" in both fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025.
- The SPSS evaluation period for fiscal 2025 will be Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025.
- SPSS evaluation results will be available for review and informal requests for reconsideration will begin Jan. 16, 2026. The deadline for agencies to submit informal requests for reconsideration will be Feb. 6, 2026.
- SPSS evaluation results will be finalized Feb. 27, 2026, and corrective action plans will be due March 13, 2026.