CMS Addresses Fire Safety Compliance Issue in Nursing Home Payment Rule

Buried in the recently adopted Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Medicare payment rule is a fix for a longstanding problem for a small group of nursing homes related to the Fire Safety Evaluation System (FSES) for Life Safety Code (LSC) compliance. Until 2013, the FSES had been a critical tool for some nursing homes in documenting LSC compliance through an equivalent means. A 2013 amendment to the National Fire Protection Association Codes & Standards (NFPA 101A (FSES)) eliminated this equivalency tool, requiring major construction projects or time-limited waivers.

The new SNF Prospective Payment System (PPS) rule essentially grandfathers in these facilities for purposes of determining equivalent fire prevention levels. The rule permits nursing homes that were Medicare or Medicaid certified before July 5, 2016 and previously utilized an FSES as a mechanism to determine equivalency to use the mandatory values found in the 2001 edition of NFPA 101A.

More information is available here, courtesy of LeadingAge National and engineering consultants Jensen Hughes.

Contact: Karen Lipson, klipson@leadingageny.org