Long-term care facilities: OSHA monitors employer weekly reports to CMS

Employers in Tennessee will be interested to know that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is pursuing a new avenue to identify potential employer violations related to COVID-19 employee deaths at long-term care facilities: employers’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data.

Background

In May 2020, the CMS—part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—issued an interim rule, which became final in September, requiring “facilities” to report various COVID-19-related data to CMS. Under the regulations, “facilities” are described as “skilled nursing facilities” and “nursing facilities” that meet the requirements of the Social Security Act and participate in the Medicare or Medicaid program.

Facilities report the data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network Long-Term Care Facility Module, which is the nation’s most widely used healthcare-associated infection tracking system, providing facilities, states, regions, and the nation with important information used for infection prevention and elimination. 

Data must be reported at least weekly and, relevant here, include suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths among facilities’ staff attributable to COVID-19. To ensure the data are timely reported, CMS may impose civil penalties for noncompliance, with a minimum of $1,000 for a first occurrence and a $500-per-occurrence increase thereafter.