Emily Mongan writing for McKnight’s reports this month regarding the anticipated launch of the new CMS – Nursing Home Compare website, slated for October of 2018.

The Skilled Nursing Facility Compare website was mandated by the IMPACT Act and will include data from the SNF Quality Reporting Program, CMS representatives said during an IMPACT Act status update call.

“The agency is currently in exploratory phase of how the new website will be integrated with the Nursing Home Compare site,” they added.

The IMPACT Act call included updates on the transfer of Health Information measures, which began the first phase of pilot testing back in January. A second phase, which calls for data collection using mock assessment items, is scheduled to begin late this summer. A national “beta test of standardized patient assessment data elements” (it sounds curiously ominous, I know…) is also slated to kick off later this year in 14 markets, officials said.

Final reports on the elements are expected to be published in September of 2018.

So what does this all mean for Sky Care MEDIA?

More business, I fully anticipate.

It is more critical now than ever, to make sure your online marketing strategy is pristine and updated.

For those SNF’s  with horrible CMS ratings and no other online ‘love’ and/or 5 STAR ratings online to pick up the slack (or, worse, other equally negative and reflective comments online), they will no doubt hope and pray that the new Nursing Home Compare website, as aesthetically pleasing and robust as it may appear online, will be equally inept and inaccessible to the major search engines as the current pages are.

If I may choose a play on words; “No news is good news,” when the available news stinks!

Friends, it’s time to make sure your online ‘news’ doesn’t stink.