Even if you have a great record of high quality and few or no citations, surveys are still stressful for a long-term care facility. However, there are ways to take the anxiety out of the survey process. In a recent webinar, Surviving the Survey: 2024, Elizabeth Tucker and Sara Avakian, attorneys at the Polsinelli Law Firm, offered insights on how to plan for and survive a survey.

Getting Ready

The more prepared you are for a survey, the more confident you can be – and the less likely you are to face surprises. To get your ducks in a row, Tucker and Avakian suggest:

• Reviewing compliance for at least the past year, if not the past 3–5 years
• Identifying problem areas and problem employees
• Confirming that all prior Plans of Correction were completed
• Checking that all routine jobs have been done and are documented
• Making sure staff licenses and certifications are up-to-date
• Checking that in-services have been accomplished
• Making sure fire drills / alarm checks are done and documented
• Ensuring that incidents/accidents have been investigated and corrective action was taken

Be prepared to address any issues – such as a recently submitted incident report to the Social Security Administration (SSA), a recent incident or confrontation with a resident’s family, or a potentially disgruntled or problematic employee. Have documentation ready about how you handled the situation and what actions were taken. 

Once you have all your information, documentation, and data organized and ready, consider conducting a dress rehearsal or mock survey. This should include interviews with staff to ensure they can describe what they are supposed to do in certain situations. Practice interviewing to make them comfortable answering questions (sticking to facts) and offering clarifications as necessary.

In your preparations, be sure to pay special attention to key risk areas including abuse and neglect, elopement, falls/accident hazards, skin breakdown, and incident investigations and reporting.

The Wisdom of Smart Policies

Review your policies and identify areas where you need to tighten things up, starting with policies for high-risk issues. Strong policies are not only required by law but also give guidance to staff, create consistency in practice, and remove the chance for error.

Tucker and Avakian suggest that “smart” policies:

• Address key issues
• Address these issues in a meaningful way
• Are implemented in ways that solve problems and reduce liability
• Don’t set a standard of care that you can’t live up to
• Aren’t too elaborate, too strict, too numerous, too secret, and/or contrary to practice

Consider which policies you don’t currently have that you may need. As a rule of thumb, consider anything that is required by law or regulation, addresses a problem in your building, or poses a risk to the organization if a policy does not exist.

Listen to the full webinar here.

Download the free tip sheet: Steps to Prepare for a Successful Survey.