January 17, 2025 | Net Health

5 min read

The Process Paradox: Improving SNF Access without Regulatory Risk

Evolving compliance regulations for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) create a potential paradox. While the data-driven nature of skilled care demands increased access to digital information that helps inform patient treatments, improve outcomes, and implement effective cost-management strategies, these new processes also introduce the potential for compliance compromise.

Here’s why: as SNFs streamline staff access to critical assets, risk rises equally. From accidental misuse or disclosure to improperly stored or secured data, the agility now required for SNFs to succeed at scale can create more problems than it solves.

This challenge is a process paradox that can be addressed in these three ways: raising regulatory rigor, addressing access requirements, and building a better balance between security and speed. Anyone in administrative positions within the SNF should be well-versed in data security and ensure that all staff are confident they can protect the sensitive patient information they have access to daily. These three practices will greatly enhance your ability to maintain security and avoid financial penalties and loss of reputation due to breaches.

Raising Regulatory Rigor

The SNF compliance landscape is continually — and rapidly — evolving. Previously issued compliance mandates from The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) came into full effect on Nov. 28, 2019, after a three-year grace period for SNFs to align existing procedures with new expectations. Updates have been made periodically since to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and the demand for patients to be able to access their personal medical information. In 2024, requirements were added for security on cloud-based systems. CMS also launched a CyberGeek website that details all the information you need to master data security and privacy. In retiring the CMS Information Security and Privacy Library, SNFs now have access to a searchable database that is always up to date on the newest cybersecurity requirements. Understanding and consulting with this resource will make you an expert in data protection.

Skilled nursing facilities that don’t meet these requirements for protecting patient privacy are unable to participate in any Medicare or Medicaid programs. With CMS surveys occurring unannounced and at any time, SNFs must ensure that day-to-day processes continually align with CMS requirements.

And that’s not all — regulatory challenges around PDPM, MDS 3.0, and PBJ Reporting now demand increased data oversight that delivers auditable records of use, storage, and modification without negatively impacting patient care. The result? For many SNFs, existing process frameworks aren’t designed to handle the regulatory rigor of existing requirements, let alone account for evolving expectations. Here, the shortest path between problem and process typically rests with specialized software capable of improving current documentation compliance while preparing for future regulatory expectations.

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Addressing Access Requirements

Limited access to information poses problems for patient outcomes. As noted by research from NCBI, while SNF facilities and those with skilled support represent the fastest-growing segment of post-acute care, the transition between acute and SNF settings is often “fragmented with incomplete clinical information necessary to provide care safely,” creating adverse patient outcomes.

While improving patient prognosis starts with improved interactions between SNF and acute care operators, there’s also an increasing need for adaptable tools capable of improving care operations — such as admissions and scheduling — that enhance point-of-care processes with actionable patient data. Put simply, the right people need access to the right data at the right time.

As a result, addressing access requirements is key. As data storage, handling, and reporting expectations evolve, SNFs want to ensure front-line workers and management staff leveraging patient data have a care-driven reason for doing so — while also ensuring these information interactions are captured, secured, and available upon request by compliance auditors. SNFs are responsible for ensuring the data in their systems is secure, accurate, and updated.

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are more secure and, at the same time, allow a patient to access their health information remotely. The best EHRs also offer the following features:

  • Turning on and off permissions for individuals or role titles to access patient information
  • Access only with a PIN or password
  • Encryption
  • Audit methods that track who accessed the information and when
  • Backup to cloud storage

Building a Better Balance

Rapid response is key to SNF success. Skilled care facilities that can quickly access patient health history are better prepared to provide consistent and coordinated care and reduce medical errors and prescription mistakes.

However, this need for speed can introduce a potential data security problem. If quick access isn’t properly controlled or data sources are not properly configured to match current SNF frameworks, the results could be doubly disastrous: Negative outcomes for high-risk patients paired with non-conforming use of resident data to support decision-making processes. Providers assume the information they receive is accurate and current and make decisions based on that assumption. Any delay in transferring information, particularly in emergencies, can be life-threatening.

Given their tendency for logistical loggerheads, security and speed are often seen as two sides of the same coin for SNFs. Choosing one negatively impacts the other. But this is a regulatory red herring. These seemingly operational opposites are part of a larger compliance continuum that requires balance, not barriers. 

But what does this mean in practice? It starts with transparency: technology tools that give SNFs the insight they need to determine where current processes aren’t entirely secure, where procedural slowdowns and lack of access are causing patient problems, and where this paradox is most problematic. Skilled nursing facilities also need configurable, customizable tools that allow organizations to find functional balance rather than forcing them into one-size-fits-all frameworks. Your technology should fit the way you work, not create more time-consuming data entry.

a nurse talks to a man at a skilled nursing facility

IT and SNF Partnership

Evolving regulatory, access, and security requirements create a process paradox for SNFs. How do you proactively meet protective standards while reducing data fragmentation and enhancing security?

By pairing technology with medicine. They need to fundamentally change the way they think about and train for accurate and secure documentation. End-to-end technology solutions paired with improved in-house best practices are essential to ensure skilled staff deliver maximum value to patients without introducing regulatory risk that could put both facility ROI and operational reliability at risk.

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