A regulatory hat will be the latest of many worn by medical directors at nursing homes. They are expected to play an integral role in surveys moving forward, and will be on the hook if documentation is missing or a situation wasn’t handled with new survey requirements in mind.
Medical directors already have significant administrative duties, leadership responsibilities and are expected to stay on top of clinical practices. Now, even more engagement is required, particularly when it comes to regulatory compliance, Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) meetings and clinical decision-making with top-of-mind issues like anti-psychotic use.
While medical directors at rural nursing homes are often already overseeing care in alignment with regulations, many nursing homes still lack this level of involvement. Some say that the expanded responsibilities of the role have been causing hurdles.
For a lot of facilities operated by the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, for example, the medical director is seen as a trusted member of the community and serves as the residents’ primary care physician, the operator’s Chief Nursing Officer DeeAndra Sandgren told Skilled Nursing News.
