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Did You Know? Skilled Nursing Facilities Subject to New Compliance Fines

Did You Know? Skilled Nursing Facilities Subject to New Compliance Fines

Effective Sept 6, 2016, fines more than doubled.

Skilled Nursing Facilities

Congress raised the maximum penalty for noncompliance resulting in an immediate jeopardy outcome over 100%.  The sanctions went from a per day minimum penalty of $3,050 to $6,291 and the maximum from $10,000 to $20,628.  That is more than a 100% increase in this penalty.  In addition, the minimum per instance sanctions went from $1,000 to $2,063 and the maximum per instance went from $10,000 to $20,628.  

Did you know that there are fines if an individual notifies the skilled nursing facility of an impending survey prior to its occurrence?  Or that a nursing facility could be penalized over $217,000 for employee retaliation if an employee calls the state?

Making Adjustments

Another interesting note is that previously the regulation was  written as  “Not to exceed” a certain dollar amount.  Now the regulation states, “Not to exceed $ as adjusted annually”.  I guess they didn’t want to wait another 30 years to increase the penalties.  These fines had not been adjusted since 1987.

HHS said that the reasons to adjust these fines reflect both inflation and to “maintain their deterrent effect.”

Other Providers

In Home Health, the daily fines for failure by a home health agency to be in compliance with statutory requirements under 42 U.S.C 1395 increased from $10,000 to $19,787.

For a list of other fines that have increased (in other sectors such as Hospitals) check here.

Written by Michael Rosen, ESQ
ProviderTrust Co-Founder, mrosen@providertrust.com

Michael brings over 20 years of experience founding and leading risk mitigation businesses, receiving numerous accolades such as: Inc Magazine’s Inc 500 Award and Nashville Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year
Connect with Michael on Linkedin

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