Recently, the August 2015 Special Focus Facility List was published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS regularly visits nursing homes to assure that they are administering the quality of care that Medicare and Medicaid require. With these regular visits, the CMS will identify any deficiencies in the quality of care being provided, as well as if the facility is meeting safety requirements. The CMS will also examine any previous noted deficiencies and how promptly they were or were not handled. These criteria will determine the facility’s overall survey from the CMS.

Additionally, if serious problems are left unchecked in these facilities, the CMS can opt to terminate the special focus facility’s participation in Medicare and Medicaid.

Once the CMS’ “survey” teams gather their data from the facilities, this is submitted to a master list, The Special Focus Facility List. This list includes all facilities with a history of care problems and/or poor surveys, and is updated monthly by the CMS. Every special focus facility must be visited by a CMS survey team at least twice a year.

If you would like to see the whole list, please visit the CMS website.

It is also important to note that if you go to Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare website and look up any individual nursing home, you will immediately be able to tell if that facility is on the Special Focus Facility List. Any facility on the list will have a yellow triangle with an exclamation point next to its name. Additionally, you can use the website to see other ratings for the facility, including health inspections, staffing and quality measures. At the moment, there are several nursing homes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey on the CMS’s most current Special Focus Facility List.