The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will start distributing about $333 million in performance payments to over 10,000 nursing homes that reduced COVID-19 infections and deaths over a two-month period.
The agency said the announcement illustrates how tying relief payments to outcome-based payments can yield positive results for improving quality.
“We've provided nursing homes with resources and training to improve infection control, and we're rapidly providing incentives to those facilities that are making progress in the fight against COVID-19,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.
Back in August, HHS allocated approximately $5 billion to nursing homes. The agency gave $2.5 billion in upfront funding to nursing homes to help increase testing, staffing and personal protective equipment needs, and the rest was linked to the homes’ performance.
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The agency evaluated nursing homes based on two criteria for infection control and mortality.
HHS found that 10,631 nursing homes, more than 77% of the 13,795 eligible to get a payment, met the infection control criteria. The homes contributed 5,000 fewer COVID-19 infections in September compared with August.
The agency added that 10,501 homes met both the infection control and mortality criteria. Those homes contributed to 1,200 fewer COVID-19 nursing home deaths in September compared to the month before.
“Nursing homes will receive September quality incentive payments next week and will have four more opportunities to receive additional incentive payments,” HHS said.
Nursing homes became major hot spots of COVID-19 at the onset of the pandemic. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities accounted for 42% of COVID-19 deaths back in May, according to an analysis from the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
A report from House and Senate lawmakers found that nearly 1 in 4 assisted living facilities had at least one COVID-19 case, and another 8% of those facilities had widespread outbreaks.