The Wisconsin Division of Quality Assurance (DQA) is conducting required four-year renewals of entity background checks of hospitals, nursing homes and other entities subject to its licensing requirements. All entities that are subject to the requirements must submit an online application for an entity background check by May 3, 2021.
An application, which includes a background information disclosure (BID), must be submitted for the license holder or legal representative; principal officers, corporation or board members if those persons have regular, direct contact with clients; and certain non-client residents. DQA’s memo, available
here, provides important details and explains the steps entities must complete to comply with the entity background check renewal requirements. Background checks are different from employee and contractor background checks, which have a different process and should not be submitted to DQA.
Also this week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) extended the hospital survey limitations for an additional 30 days, through March 22, 2021. As
previously reported in
The Valued Voice, CMS outlined survey limitations that began Jan. 20, 2021, in a memo to state survey agency directors. These included the following:
- Hospital complaint surveys will be restricted to immediate jeopardy complaint allegations, with CMS prioritizing onsite complaint investigations based on imminent danger to the patient, likelihood of noncompliance with the Medicare conditions of participation, and whether immediate action must be taken to protect the health and safety of patients.
- Hospital recertification surveys will be suspended except for a subset of hospital reaccreditation surveys.
- Hospital enforcement actions for deficiencies that do not represent immediate jeopardy will have their termination date extended for at least 30 days to remain consistent with the survey guidance.
A copy of the updated CMS memo with additional key details is available
here.