Last fall, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Final Rule, a three-phased process that revises the requirements that long term/post-acute care centers must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. One of those requirements involves QAPI: Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement.
In phase one of the Final Rule, which started Nov. 28, 2016, nursing centers will continue to follow the current rules and practices while drafting and testing out a QAPI plan. Phase two, which begins Nov. 28, 2017, requires that each facility have a full QAPI plan developed and will be prepared to provide it to the surveying agent at the first standard survey after this date, and phase three requires full implementation of the QAPI process effective Nov. 28, 2019.
So what is the key takeaway here? If an organization has not begun the QAPI process, now is the time to get started.
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