Situation Report | August 24, 2020
On August 17, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it will resume routine inspections of all Medicare and Medicaid certified providers and suppliers.
In an accompanying guidance, CMS directed the resumption of onsite revisit surveys, non-immediate jeopardy complaint surveys and annual recertification surveys as soon as resources are available. In addition, CMS is providing guidance on resolving enforcement cases that were previously on hold because of survey prioritization changes. It will also temporarily expand the desk review policy – whereby state surveyors endeavor to ensure an entity’s resumption of compliance without an onsite survey – to include all noncompliance reviews except for immediate jeopardy citations that have not been removed.
CMS had previously suspended certain routine inspections as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic to prioritize infection control and immediate jeopardy situations and to give health care providers and suppliers time needed to respond to the spread of COVID-19.