Complying with CMS reporting requirements can be easy

Likely you read the article in the November 14, 2014 McKnight’s Daily Update entitled, SNF staffing data will be submitted quarterly, payroll vendors might be responsible, CMS officials say, which reported that CMS has launched a pilot to solicit information directly from providers’ payroll systems. The crux of the matter is the lack of confidence in the accuracy of the information providers are reporting to CMS annually to comply with Five Star Rating information requests.

Further, in a previous McKnight’s article, dated November 13, 2014, entitled 80% of nursing homes report misleadingly high staffing levels, Center for Public Integrity claims, the Center for Public Integrity claims that “more than 80% of skilled nursing facilities might have inflated registered nurse staffing levels on the Nursing Home Compare website.” I have a hard time believing that reported registered nurse staffing levels were double that which Medicare cost reports reveal. If that is the case, some providers must be extremely short sighted. Or the investigative journalists at CPI don't know how to read cost reports. The New York Times further fanned the flames of controversy by claiming that providers “ramp up” their staffing levels before a known inspection, allegedly using that time period as the sample for reporting purposes. These two articles seem to indicate that providers have two issues to deal with when it comes to reporting labor information, e.g., accuracy and integrity.

Technology can ensure reporting accuracy and timeliness

So what’s a provider to do? Assuming providers have integrity, let’s discuss accuracy. In the past, when I was running buildings, I had to collect the data and create the reports manually, cross-checking multiple times to make sure the reports were accurate - a laborious, tedious, and time-consuming task. Providers today, however, have a much easier and time-saving alternative - automated data mining and business intelligence (BI). Retrieving, compiling, and repurposing the data into useful, relevant, timely, accurate, and actionable information is fully automated through data mining and BI technologies. The data comes directly from the provider’s time and attendance and payroll systems, combined with its clinical and financial software. The BI tool retrieves that data and stores it in a data warehouse from which it creates reports usually viewable in a dashboard. Further, the reports can be as “real time” as the provider needs them to be. As soon as an employee punches in or out that data is stored and therefore information can be retrieved and reported throughout the day.

Business Intelligence can be a tool to use to take action, to make sure that labor is compliant with budgetary and regulatory requirements. It can also be a reporting tool readily disseminating accurate reports to stake holders, managers, and even to regulatory agencies. Even better, such BI tools already exist, such as our primeVIEW dashboard. With it providers throughout the day are able to view staffing levels, observe overtime, identify who’s on the clock and who’s not, review part-time employee hours, and assess labor trending. It can also generate the CMS 671 report for the Long Term Care Facility Application for Medicare and Medicaid. This kind of rich reporting goes beyond CMS requirements and has proven useful to providers across the country to help them save money and improve business processes.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to look into Business Intelligence to not only run your business, but to comply with such reporting requirements as CMS will mandate for all providers. Through business intelligence, such information is accessible, accurate, and painless…well, at least the process is; the results may not be. But that is why you want BI in the first place. Address the pain before it gets out of hand. But that is for another blog posting.