In March 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released memorandum QSO-19-08-NH. The memo outlines a plan to update the five quality measure (QM) rating thresholds on the Nursing Home Compare website every six months. The plan is to increase the thresholds by 50 percent of the average rate of improvement in QM rating scores. For example, if there is an average rate of improvement of two percent, the QM rating thresholds would be raised one percent. Similar to setting new thresholds, this action also aims to incentivize continuous quality improvement.
Additionally, it reduces the need to have larger adjustments to the thresholds in the future. Due to COVID-19, these updates were put on hold. However, CMS began implementing them in April 2022, and it plans to update them again with the October 2022 refresh. CMS will also release a new Five-Star Quality Rating System Technical Users’ Guide with the updated QM rating thresholds in October.