This month, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued their 2016 Compendium of Unimplemented Recommendations which outlines 25 unimplemented recommendations the office says would help cut costs and improve quality among Department of Health & Human Services programs.

The report includes two areas impacting Nursing Homes. The first is the OIG’s recommendation that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) increase its efforts to identify and prevent adverse events CMS, along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, previously concurred with OIG’s recommendation. CMS released draft guidance in July to nursing homes regarding medication-related events and is currently in the process of creating guidance for events related to resident care and infections expected sometime in 2017.

The other issue identified in the compendium is OIG’s call for CMS to re-evaluate and reform how skilled nursing facilities receive Medicare payments for therapy services. CMS is currently conducting a study to evaluate therapy payment options and will use the results to inform any changes to payment methods it proposes.