To date, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued several F-tags and civil money penalties (CMPs) to nursing facilities for failing to report COVID-19 data to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) on a weekly basis, as required by CMS. In the Long-Term Care Newsletter issued on June 30, 2020, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) acknowledged that many of these tags and CMPs have been unwarranted due to nursing facilities being unable to connect to or having their data rejected by the NHSN system.
ISDH has discussed these problems with the regional CMS office in Chicago, and based on those conversations, ISDH recommends the following:
- Try to connect and report to NSHN on a daily basis (if you are having difficulties reporting on a weekly basis, as required by CMS), even if each attempt is unsuccessful. After unsuccessful attempts, nursing facilities should request technical assistance from NHSN.
- Maintain thorough records of all attempts to connect, report, and receive technical assistance.
- If you receive an F-tag and/or CMP, submit the matter to independent informal dispute resolution (IIDR) within the permitted time-frame and include all documentation and details. ISDH suggests a separate IIDR request for each 2567, even if the supporting documentation is the same.
ISDH welcomes nursing facilities to submit PDF versions of their IIDR submissions to Nancy Adams at nadams1@isdh.in.gov or Suzanne Williams at suwilliams@isdh.in.gov, as ISDH may be able to lend further support. If you have questions, please contact Lori Davenport at Ldavenport@ihca.org.