According to a Sept. 26 press release, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced that more data will be publicly available regarding information about the ownership of all Medicare-certified nursing homes.
The release states that “This data will, for the first time, give state licensing officials, state and federal law enforcement, researchers, and the public an enhanced ability to identify common owners of nursing homes across nursing home locations. This information can be linked to other data sources to identify the performance of facilities under common ownership, such as owners affiliated with multiple nursing homes with a record of poor performance.”
Further, “The release of this new data advances the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of improving transparency of nursing home ownership outlined in President Biden’s State of the Union Action Plan for Protecting Seniors by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation’s Nursing Homes. It is also part of HHS and CMS’s efforts to implement the President’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition. Secretary Becerra serves as a member of President Biden’s White House Competition Council, created by President Biden’s Order on Competition. Secretary Becerra will highlight this new initiative at a Competition Council meeting with President Biden at the White House on Monday.”
The announcement, according to the release, aims to build on the release of nursing homes and hospitals data by CMS earlier this year. CMS first released data publicly in April on mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and changes of ownership for the years 2016-2022 for hospitals and nursing homes enrolled in Medicare.
“The information posted today now includes detailed information on the ownership of approximately 15,000 nursing homes certified as a Medicare Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF)—regardless of any change in ownership, including providing more information about organizational owners of nursing homes,” the release adds. “For example, the expanded data elements include information about each organizational owner, such as whether it’s a holding company or a consulting firm. CMS has also provided key identifiers that reflect groups of nursing homes with common ownership or managerial control.”
The data will be available on data.cms.gov and updated monthly. The data is intended for researchers and federal agencies but will be available to consumers through a link in the ownership section of Care Compare on the Medicare.gov website beginning Sept. 28.
CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure was quoted in the release saying that “We’re taking another major step forward in improving transparency in healthcare. Researchers, states, regulators and others will be able to use this new data source to learn more about the impacts that nursing home ownership structures have on the care provided to residents.”
