Why OIG Did This Review. Nursing homes and their residents have been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, partly because of longstanding challenges with staffing and infection control. To help nursing homes and other health care providers respond to the pandemic, Congress appropriated $178 billion and designated HHS to oversee Provider Relief Fund (PRF) and related distributions to providers. HHS made approximately $9.4 billion in targeted PRF distributions to nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). How OIG Did This Review. We conducted this evaluation in conjunction with a series of Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) studies examining COVID-19 funding in six select locations. We examined how 11 nursing homes in those locations used PRF payments during 2020 and 2021 to improve their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also examined Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) oversight of the funds. We based our findings on document reviews, an analysis of PRF payment data, and 33 interviews with leadership, staff, residents, and residents’ family members from the selected nursing homes. We also conducted two group interviews with HRSA officials. We collected the documents and data in early 2022 to prepare for conducting interviews from May through December concurrently with the PRAC’s site visits.
Copyright:
The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)