Yesterday, EOHHS Secretary Marylou Sudders responded in a letter to MSCA’s urgent request for assistance, outlining the steps the Administration has taken to date to support nursing homes during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

The Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) has announced that due to the COVID-19 outbreak, CHIA is postponing the FY2019 deployment of all nursing facility cost reports.

To address staffing challenges in nursing facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commonwealth last week stood up a Long-Term Care Staffing Portal. Today, the Command Center announced a $1,000 signing bonus to all individuals that register through the LTC Staffing Portal to work for a certain amount of time in a nursing home.

The Joint Committee on Elder Affairs held a virtual hearing today to hear testimony on House Bill 4635, An Act Relative to Long Term Care Facility and Elder Housing COVID-19 Reporting. Mass Senior Care provided written testimony supporting the legislation. The legislation filed by Elder Affairs House Chairwoman Ruth Balser would require nursing facilities, assisted living residences, rest homes and elder housing to report to local department of health or to DPH the number of known COVID-19 positive cases and mortalities in the facility.

Massachusetts Senior Care Association has partnered with MIT’s COVID-19 Policy Alliance to stand up a Long Term Care Coordinating Center to assist member facilities during this crisis. Mass Senior Care staff have been working closely with MIT’s COVID-19 Policy Alliance – a team of MIT Sloan School of Management faculty and experts, led by Professors Kate Kellogg, Simon Johnson and Retsef Levi. The goal of the LTC Coordinating Center is to provide Mass Senior Care and our members with additional resources and data analytics to combat the spread of COVID-19.

This call series is an opportunity to hear physicians and other clinical leaders share their experiences, best practices, strategies, and insights related to COVID-19. Lessons from The Front Lines calls are held weekly on Fridays at 12:30 PM.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued on Friday, April 10, 2020 its proposed federal fiscal year 2020 (FFY 2021) Medicare SNF PPS rule.

The US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released its updated list which reflects all OIG exclusions and reinstatement actions up to, and including, those taken in March 2020.