Despite promises of ‘aggressive enforcement,’ over 40,000 residents died in homes that received a clean bill of health. Government inspectors deployed by CMS during the first six months of the Covid-19 crisis cleared nearly 8 in 10 nursing homes of any infection-control violations even as the deadliest pandemic to strike the United States in a century sickened and killed thousands, a Washington Post investigation found.

Read Article: The Washington Post

Excerpt:

But the government inspectors deployed by CMS during the first six months of the crisis cleared nearly 8 in 10 nursing homes of any infection-control violations even as the deadliest pandemic to strike the United States in a century sickened and killed thousands, a Washington Post investigation found.

“Those cleared included homes with mounting coronavirus outbreaks before or during the inspections, as well as those that saw cases and deaths spiral upward after inspectors reported no violations had been found, in some cases multiple times. All told, homes that received a clean bill of health earlier this year had about 290,000 coronavirus cases and 43,000 deaths among residents and staff, state and federal data shows. That death toll constitutes roughly two-thirds of all covid-19 fatalities linked to nursing homes from March through August. Patient watchdog groups acknowledge that not every outbreak could have been prevented, even with adequate infection-control practices in place. But as the pandemic raged, the number of homes flagged for infection-control violations remained about the same as last year.

“The facilities that were cited for breakdowns often escaped significant penalties …  The inspections follow a three-year push at CMS to ease rules long considered burdensome to the nursing home industry, whose lobbyists and leaders include former politicians and government insiders. Even before the coronavirus crisis, the agency took steps to limit the use of some fines and strike an Obama-era mandate requiring nursing homes to bring on at least part-time infection preventionists.”

From the Texas Trial Lawyers Association news release.