The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care welcomes President Obama’s appointment today of Dr. Donald Berwick to be Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS is the federal agency responsible for the regulation of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities and services that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds.
“CMS has not had a permanent director since Mark McClelland’s departure in 2006,” said Executive Director Sarah F. Wells. “While we are disappointed that there will not be a Senate confirmation process in which Dr. Berwick could answer questions about his plans for administering CMS and implementing health care reform, we believe this agency position is too critical to the health and long-term care system to remain vacant any longer."
“CMS is already engaged in the development of regulations and other procedures required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to improve quality and safety in long-term care facilities and expand access to home and community-based services,” Wells noted, “and we are pleased that Dr. Berwick will oversee that effort. We also hope that he will give his attention to repeated GAO studies and other investigations that show severe understaffing in nursing homes, serious quality of care problems throughout the industry, and weak enforcement of the Nursing Home Reform Law in many states. This Administrator also must recognize that as federal funding increases in home and community-based services, the federal government must take more responsibility for ensuring the quality of those services and the safety of those who receive care from them.”
The health care reform law passed in March includes substantial improvements in public reporting of nursing home ownership, operations, financing, staffing, and quality; provisions to improve quality assurance by nursing homes and federal oversight of nursing home chains; background checks on workers who come into contact with home care recipients and residents of long-term care facilities; mandatory reporting of neglect, abuse, and exploitation in long-term care facilities; and expansion of public funds for long-term care in non-nursing home settings.