E-News Updates

Mass Senior Care would like to extend an invitation to Veterans to join Alliance Health and other member communities to participate in Dream Flights. This incredible program honors Veterans by giving them the chance to fly in a restored World War II-era biplane.

The Massachusetts Senior Care Foundation’s annual Scholarship Program assists long term care staff in meeting their personal and professional goals through furthering their education. Since 1985, the Foundation has awarded nearly $3 million dollars in scholarships to more than 1,600 deserving long term care staff, known as “Foundation Scholars.” The annual program, funded through the generosity of long term care providers and related organizations, supports the Foundation's mission to promote the development of a skilled and committed workforce. The Foundation is now accepting applications for its 2025 awards.

Governor Maura Healey has appointed Dr. Kiame Mahaniah as Secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS).

On July 14, 2025, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) issued Administrative Bulletin 25-16 updating the fees effective July 1, 2025 for fiscal year 2026. This change implements the new state budget requirement that EOHHS increase the nursing facility provider tax to the maximum amount under federal law, which totals 6% of total annual nursing facility revenue.

AHCA has informed MSCA that it has received notice from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that the agency is extending the deadline for the mandatory SNF provider enrollment off-cycle revalidation from August 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026. CMS will be issuing formal public notice in the coming days on this extension.

The Department of Public Health is holding a public hearing and comment period on proposed amendments to the Executive Office for Administration and Finance (A&F) regulation to increase the fee charged to licensed health care facilities for architectural plan review of facility construction documents for new construction and renovations to existing facilities from $8.25 to $10.50 per $1,000 of construction costs. The public hearing will be held on July 28, 2025 at 1pm.

Nursing facilities are reminded to remain diligent in their infection control practices to limit the spread of COVID-19 to residents and staff. At the expiration of the PHE, DPH released guidance on Organizational Policies and Procedures for Mitigating Respiratory Illness. Nursing facilities must continue to identify and monitor respiratory illness metrics to indicate when there are increased levels which may necessitate implementing these infection control measures. One possible metric is the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) Wastewater COVID-19 Tracking which measures the SARS-CoV2 levels.

The SNF Provider Preview Reports have been updated and are now available. These reports contain provider performance scores for quality measures, which will be published on the compare tool on Medicare.gov and the Provider Data Catalog (PDC) during the October 2025 release.

The CMS security team has authorized an increase of the iQIES system timeout to 30 minutes. Previously, users would be automatically logged out of the system after 15 minutes of inactivity. This change is now in effect.

2025 Unit Manager Training Program Tuesdays in September: 9/9, 9/16, 9/23, 9/30 2 In-Person Sessions and 2 Virtual Sessions: September 9, 9:00 AM – 3:30 PM, In-Person, Whitney Place at