SNF Expenditure Data-GAO Report
The GAO issued a new report regarding the accessibility of SNF expenditure data. Skilled Nursing Facilities: CMS Should Improve Accessibility & Reliability of Expenditure Data was released October 6, 2016. Here is what the GAO found
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) … collects and reports expenditure data from skilled nursing facilities (SNF), but it has not taken key steps to make the data readily accessible to public stakeholders or to ensure their reliability. SNFs are required to self-report their expenditures in annual financial cost reports, and CMS posts the raw data on its website. However, CMS has not provided the data in a readily accessible format and has not posted the data in a place that is easy to find on its website, according to public stakeholders and GAO’s observations. In addition, CMS does little to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data. Federal internal control standards suggest that agencies should make data accessible to the public and ensure data reliability. Until CMS takes steps to make reliable SNF expenditure data easier to use and locate, public stakeholders will have difficulty accessing and placing confidence in the only publicly available source of financial data for many SNFs.
GAO found that, for each fiscal year from 2011 through 2014, direct and indirect care costs were lower as a percentage of revenue, on average, at for-profit SNFs compared with nonprofit and government SNFs. Direct and indirect care costs were similarly lower at chain SNFs compared with independent SNFs. In addition, the median margin, which measures revenue relative to costs, was higher for for-profit and chain SNFs than for other SNFs in each of the 4 years.
The relationship between SNFs’ nurse staffing levels (hours per resident day) and their margins varied by ownership type in each fiscal year from 2012 through 2014, the 3 years with complete staffing data. For-profit SNFs generally had lower nurse staffing ratios than did nonprofit and government SNFs. Examining each fiscal year separately, GAO estimated that a SNF’s margin had a small, but statistically significant, effect on its case-mix adjusted (that is, adjusted for residents’ health care needs) nurse staffing ratios. For example, for each percentage point increase in a for-profit SNF’s margin in fiscal year 2014, GAO estimated that the SNF’s total nurse staffing ratio (including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and certified nursing assistants) decreased by 4.1 minutes per resident day after controlling for other factors. However, in GAO’s analyses, these other factors, such as geographic location, were more important predictors of a SNF’s case-mix adjusted nurse staffing ratios.
A pdf of the report is available here.