On November 15, 2023, CMS finalized a proposed rule that will require Skilled Nursing Facilities ("SNFs") to disclose the identity of an expanded array of ownership and control interests in SNFs beyond the information that is already required. The disclosure will be required upon initial Medicare enrollment, at revalidation, and upon any change of the data reported. The expanded ownership and control interests that must be disclosed include:
- Each member of the facility's governing body, including the name, title, and period of service of each member.
- Each person or entity who is an officer, director, member, partner, trustee, or managing employee of the facility, including the name, title, and period of service of each such person or entity.
- Each person or entity who is an additional disclosable party of the facility.
- The organizational structure of each additional disclosable party of the facility and a description of the relationship of each such additional disclosable party to the facility and to one another.
These new rules will bring additional interested parties into public view in certain circumstances, such as ownership interests by private equity companies and real estate investment trust ("REITs") ownership information. For example, although the definition of "additional disclosable party" does not expressly include private equity companies or REITs, these entities might need to be disclosed as an additional disclosable party because they exercise financial control over the SNF, lease, or sublease real property thereto, own at least 5% of the real property, or otherwise have the identified level of control over the SNF.
CMS will collect this information through a revised Form CMS-855A. Within a year after CMS publishes the final rule, it will begin making the ownership disclosure information publicly available. Currently, the process and specific timing for disclosing this new ownership interest information remains to be determined.
Importantly, CMS states in its commentary that although revalidations normally occur on a five-year cycle, CMS reserves the right to conduct off-cycle revalidations to collect this new data. Thus, SNFs should prepare for CMS to request this information sooner than their next five-year revalidation deadline, and possibly as soon as the new Form 855-A form is published.
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