Fines to begin June 21st for missed NHSN Vaccination Reporting

• By: Danielle Watford
• On: 06/17/2021 13:06:30
• In: Quality/Regulatory

Nursing homes that have not reported required resident and staff vaccination rates to federal officials will get a one-week reprieve before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services begins assessing penalties, a provider organization said Monday.

Reporting requirements went into effect last month, with enforcement through civil monetary penalties originally slated to begin Monday June 14, 2021. 

As of figures available last Thursday June 10th, less than 30% of skilled nursing providers had reportedly sent vaccination data for the week of May 30 to the National Health Safety Network.

That share jumped significantly over the weekend, with about 13,000 providers now reporting, said Katz, one of several provider group leaders to meet with new CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure for the first time Monday afternoon.

Nursing homes have been required to submit their data since May 21. Enforcement of the mandate begins Monday (June 14), with all providers required to submit the prior week's data by 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday. 

Regulators are urging providers to submit updated figures to avoid civil monetary penalties. Wednesday afternoon, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent all nursing homes a reminder memo, outlining the weekly reporting mandate and the rationale for it. Fines will escalate for each week data is missing, officials noted.

“Any nursing homes that are not reporting this information weekly should do so immediately,” said the memo.

Data submission is conducted through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health Safety Network reporting system. The tabulations can now be found here.

Information about how to submit data to the NHSN can be found here. Officials advise providers to email questions to NHSN@cdc.gov.

Staff Contact: dwatford@mehca.org