October 07, 2026
209 Quality Awards. One Very Proud Team.

Congratulations to every 2026 AHCA/NCAL Quality Award winner, including the 209 SHP clients who earned an award this year.

Skilled Nursing , In the Press ,
By Dahlia Kroth October 05, 2026
Smartie Tips to turn Five Star from a surprise into a strategy

If you work in skilled nursing, you already know the Five Star Rating shapes census, referrals, financial stability, and how families, hospitals, and regulators see your building. And with CMS making significant changes to the system in recent months, many teams are finding that what they knew a year ago just doesn’t hold up anymore.

Skilled Nursing , In the Press ,
By Greg Seiple September 23, 2026
CMS Releases FY2027 Mission & Priorities Document: What's Actually New for Nursing Homes

Each year, CMS publishes its Mission & Priorities Document (MPD), the internal roadmap that tells State Survey Agencies how to prioritize nursing home surveys and oversight for the coming fiscal year. The FY2027 MPD is out, and for skilled nursing and long-term care providers, most of it is a continuation of what's already in motion. But two changes are worth understanding clearly.

Skilled Nursing , In the Press ,
August 27, 2026
SHP Announces 2025 Best-of-the-Best Winners

The annual SHPBest™ award program was created to recognize home health and hospice providers that consistently provide outstanding performance in patient and caregiver satisfaction. SHP would like to congratulate the 2025 SHP Best-of-the-Best winners, who have been acknowledged for achieving the highest overall HHCAHPS patient satisfaction or CAHPS Hospice caregiver satisfaction scores of all eligible SHP clients during the 2025 calendar year.

Home Health , Hospice , Company News ,
August 06, 2026
Web mode is working: return rates tell a compelling story

When CMS introduced web mode for the CAHPS Hospice Survey, the aim was simple: give caregivers an easier way to respond, and get more of them to reply. Initial indicators from SHP web-mail mode adopters tell us that this new program has had exactly that effect.

Hospice
By Greg Seiple August 06, 2026
Five Stars Is Still in Reach - and There’s a Practical Way to Get There

The July 2026 refresh raised the bar for a 5-star Quality Measure rating. But when you score facilities against the new thresholds, a large group sits just below the line — close enough to recoup a star the recut took, or claim one that's suddenly within range. A practical guide for SNF/LTC teams · Based on CMS quality-measure data and the July 2026 Five-Star Technical Users' Guide, scored against the current thresholds.

Skilled Nursing , In the Press ,
August 06, 2026
From Reactive to Predictive: Why Data Is the New Compliance Strategy in Skilled Nursing

For years, compliance in skilled nursing has run on a simple checklist logic: submit the data, confirm it went through, move on. Did we file PBJ on time? Check. Did we survive the Annual Health Inspection survey? Check. That mindset made sense when regulatory programs were fewer, simpler, and largely disconnected from one another. That environment no longer exists.

Skilled Nursing
August 06, 2026
CY 2027 Home Health Proposed Rule: What's Real, What's Just an Idea, and What It Means for Your Quality Programs

For home health agencies, the CY 2027 Home Health Proposed Rule (CMS-1844-P) is, first and foremost, a quality-program story. Yes, it sets next year's payment rates, and we'll cover that up front because you'll want the headline number. But the developments most likely to shape how you plan sit in the quality reporting sections: what CMS is confirming for the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP) and the Expanded Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) model, and how the agency is signaling it may eventually connect the two.

Home Health , In the Press ,
By Greg Seiple July 20, 2026
CMS Tightens the Rules on Accrediting Organizations: What Skilled Nursing Facilities Should Know

On June 16, 2026, CMS published a final rule targeting the oversight of Accrediting Organizations — the national bodies that can certify certain healthcare providers as meeting Medicare requirements. While skilled nursing facilities are not directly regulated by this rule in its current form, the provisions it establishes are worth understanding. They signal where CMS is heading on accreditation, mock surveys, and the relationship between consulting services and regulatory oversight — all topics with real implications for long-term care.

Skilled Nursing , In the Press ,
By Chris Attaya June 03, 2026
Decoding the SSVI: What CMS's New Hospice Scorecard Reveals About Agency Performance

In the FY 2027 Hospice Proposed Rule (CMS-1851-P), CMS introduced the Service and Spending Variation Index (SSVI) — a composite scoring tool that flags hospice agencies whose patterns of care and Medicare spending diverge meaningfully from peer norms. CMS released an accompanying agency-level dataset covering 6,642 hospices in FY2025 and 6,735 hospices in FY2024, offering the most granular view of variation across the hospice benefit that CMS has published to date.

Home Health , In the Press ,