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Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog

We offer updates on national on regional issues such as malpractice defense, regulatory compliance, labor and employment issues and estate planning.

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
February 16, 2017

HIPAA Update - Reminder for your Clients - 2016 HIPAA Breach Reporting Deadline is 3/1/17

As a helpful reminder, clients need to be aware that the March 1, 2017 deadline for reporting 2016 HIPAA breaches is fast approaching. March 1, 2017 is the Deadline for Reporting 2016 HIPAA Breaches Affecting Fewer than 500 Individuals by Covered Entities to the OCR. Click here for a link to the OCR portal to file year end breach reports. Each year, covered entities are required to file a report within 60 days of year end if the covered entity experienced a breach during the prior year affecting fewer than 500 individuals.

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
January 11, 2017

HIPAA Update - Newest Settlement of $475,000 Results From Untimely Breach Report

Don’t let your clients get caught paying a “big” settlement for failing to report a HIPAA breach! For the first time, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has announced a HIPAA settlement with a provider who failed to provide a timely breach report. Presence Health, a health network serving Illinois with approximately 150 locations, including 11 hospitals and 27 long-term care and senior living facilities, has been ordered to pay a $475,000 HIPAA settlement and being directed to implement a corrective action plan because it failed to report a breach in a timely manner.

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
December 29, 2016

CMS Unveils Websites for Comparing Rehabilitation and Long-Term Care Facilities

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has unveiled two new websites for consumers that include information comparing rehabilitation facilities and long-term care facilities. CMS says that these websites are optimized for mobile use. The sites are located at medicare.gov/inpatientrehabilitationfacilitycompare/ and medicare.gov/longtermcarehospitalcompare/

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
November 22, 2016

CMS Final Rule – Completed Comprehensive Analysis by Sandberg Phoenix LTC Team

The past few weeks have been busy ones for the Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard Long-Term Care and Senior Living team as we have collectively analyzed and blogged about each of the revisions to the federal nursing home regulations. These revisions to 42 CFR 483(B) are the first comprehensive updates since 1991 and address the requirements Long-Term Care facilities must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
November 15, 2016

Section 483.35 Nursing Services

Implementation Date: November 28, 2016Section 483.35 regarding requirements for nursing services was formerly located at section 483.30. The former regulations addressed certain aspects of facility staffing but left gaps related to a number of areas such as the competencies of licensed nurses and the need to take into account resident acuity. The new rule adopts a competency–based staffing approach which requires the facility to evaluate its population and its resources in accordance with section 483.70(b)