Nursing Home Covid-19 Deaths Near 32,000 With 95,000-Plus Cases

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Thursday released updated data on Covid-19 infections in nursing homes, showing nearly 32,000 deaths as of May 31 and more than 95,000 confirmed cases.

That’s up from 24,000 deaths and 60,000 confirmed cases reported as of May 24 at nursing homes that accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. The significant increases reflect technical problems in the reporting, not a weekly increase of 6,000 additional deaths, CMS administrator Seema Verma told reporters Thursday.

“As with any new program, some facilities are going to struggle as they come online,” Verma said. “And there’s going to be honest errors in data entry. And so we should expect to see some fluctuations in the data.”

The next set of data will be updated in two weeks. The CMS plans to update the data weekly thereafter.

In April, the CMS issued guidance requiring nursing homes to provide information each week about coronavirus cases among workers and residents. Facilities could face penalties of up to $1,000 per week for violating the directive.

Reporting Rate Is Up

About 13,600 nursing homes, roughly 88% of the 15,400 facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid, have now reported, Verma said. That’s up from about 80% in the previous week.

The rules require that “nursing homes must inform residents and their representatives within 12 hours of the occurrence of a single confirmed infection of COVID-19.” The same reporting requirement applies if three or more residents or staff develop Covid-like respiratory symptoms within 72 hours.

The move was in response to an explosion of Covid-19 infections and deaths at the U.S. nursing homes, where hand-washing, proper use of personal protective equipment, and separation of residents by their Covid-19 status remains a challenge.

In response to the rate of infections, the CMS is directing states to complete more on-site inspections at problem nursing homes or risk losing federal funding to combat Covid-19. The agency also increased civil monetary penalties and other enforcement actions against nursing homes with repeated infection-control deficiencies.

The agency is also making available the results of inspections and surveys online at a site dubbed Nursing Home Compare. The CMS plans to post the results of the inspections monthly on an ongoing basis as they are completed.