The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released memo QSO-23-21-NH on September 20 outlining changes to the nursing home staffing measures on Care Compare. Due to the implementation of the updated Minimum Data Set (MDS) on October 1, some staffing and quality measures on Care Compare will be frozen with the April 2024 refresh.

The April 2024 refresh will also implement a new policy in which nursing homes that fail to submit PBJ data (or that submit erroneous data) will have the lowest score possible applied to their turnover measures, rather than having the turnover measure suppressed as is currently the policy.

CMS clarified on an association call on September 26 that with the April 2024 refresh, staffing level measures will be frozen but turnover measures will not be frozen. The new lowest score policy will be applied to the turnover measures, which will then be calculated with the frozen staffing level measures to produce the Staffing Domain Rating.