Federal Agencies Team Up to Prevent Outbreaks at Nursing Homes (1)

The federal Medicare agency will work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help prevent Covid-19 outbreaks at high-risk hospitals and nursing homes, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said.

The plan by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services calls for state inspectors to conduct targeted infection control surveys of nursing homes and hospitals that may be ripe for an outbreak, based on projections that the CDC has derived from Medicare claims data.

“This is an extraordinary step designed for extraordinary times,” Verma told reporters in a Monday telephone briefing.

The CDC has reported confirmed cases of the coronavirus ...