Glossary
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The site uses the terms of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Each term has one meaning on every page. For three terms, the glossary also quotes the words of CMS.
- CCN
- The CMS Certification Number. CMS gives each certified nursing home one number of six characters.
- Star rating
- CMS gives each home 1 to 5 stars for health inspections, for staffing and for quality measures, and one overall rating.
- State Survey Agency
- The state office that inspects nursing homes for CMS and investigates complaints about them.
- Standard survey
- The full inspection that the State Survey Agency does without notice. The average interval between two standard surveys is about 12 months.
- Complaint investigation
- An inspection that the State Survey Agency does after a complaint about the home. It can occur at any time.
- Survey cycle
- CMS keeps the last three cycles, and cycle 1 is the latest. A cycle has one standard survey. Citations from complaint and infection control inspections go into cycles of 12 months.
- Deficiency
- A federal requirement that the home did not meet at the time of an inspection.
- Citation
- The record of one deficiency in an inspection. One inspection can give many citations.
- F-tag
- The number of a federal requirement for nursing homes. Each citation names one F-tag.
- Scope and severity
- A letter from A to L on each citation. Scope is the number of residents that the deficiency affected. Severity is the level of harm.
- Dispute review
- A home can dispute a citation in an Informal Dispute Resolution (IDR). CMS shows such a citation and marks it.
- Penalty
- A fine, or a payment denial: a period in which Medicare or Medicaid does not pay for new admissions. The CMS penalties file holds three years.
- Hours per resident per day
- The nurse hours for one resident on an average day. CMS calculates the figure from the hours that the home reports for a quarter.
- Quality measure
- A figure that CMS calculates from the assessments of residents. One example is the percentage of long-stay residents with a fall and a major injury.
- Median
- The middle value of the homes in a group. One half of the homes are at or below it.
- Special Focus Facility
- A home in the CMS Special Focus Facility program. The State Survey Agency inspects the home every six months. CMS gives it no star ratings.
nursing homes that have a history of serious quality issues and are included in a special program to stimulate improvements in their quality of care
- SFF candidate
- A home on the CMS list from which a state selects its next Special Focus Facility. A candidate is not in the program.
The facilities with the most points in a state then become candidates for the SFF program.
- Abuse icon
- A CMS mark for a home with a citation for abuse at the levels that CMS states below. With the icon, the health inspection rating is 2 stars at most.
Cited for abuse or neglect at harm level or above on survey cycle 1 (Scope/severity G or greater) or cited for abuse or neglect at potential harm level (Scope/Severity D or above) on both survey cycles 1 and 2.
- Chain
- A group of nursing homes under one chain name in the CMS provider file.
- Owner organisation
- An organisation in the CMS ownership file. CMS records its role, for example an ownership interest, operational or managerial control, or a mortgage interest.