COVID-19 Reporting Changes in Effect

Posted on July 14, 2022 by Kari Everson

Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires nursing homes to report facility resident and staff COVID-19 case numbers to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control’s (CDC) National Health Safety Network (NHSN) weekly.

This reporting should continue; however, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced nursing home members will no longer be required to report new, individual resident or staff cases.

Assisted living communities may stop reporting individual case information, too. However, MDH will require aggregate case reporting from assisted living members via REDCap or NHSN, whichever the organization chooses. For reporting via the Minnesota REDCap survey, pick one day of the week and consistently report results on that day. Complete reporting even if the number of new COVID-19 cases in residents and staff is zero.

There are no changes to reporting resident deaths or point-of-care test results for either nursing homes or assisted living organizations. When a resident with a previous history of a positive COVID test dies, this death remains reportable regardless of how long ago the resident tested positive. Reporting requirements remain unchanged for point-of-care covid tests such as Binax NOW antigen testing or CUE molecular testing done by the organization. Please continue reporting test results of any test performed in the community as part of the CLIA certificate of waiver requirement. The current MDH requirement is to report ONLY positive COVID-19 test results through either NHSN or RePortal.

If you previously attempted to access the updated reporting links and they did not work for you, please retry them now. They were not active until the change took effect.

For questions on testing and reporting requirements, please contact Kari Everson.