CMS Revises ICF/IID Interpretive Guidelines

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has revised the Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ICF/IID) State Operations Manual (SOM) Appendix J – Interpretive Guidelines and new Exhibit to “clarify the intent of the Conditions of Participation (CoPs) for ICF/IID as well as represent current standards of practice in the field.” In addition, the probes and procedures have been removed from the IGs and placed into an Exhibit in the SOM.

The Interpretive Guidelines have been revised to “provide a concise clarification of the regulation intent and represent current standards of practice in the field of ICF/IID.” The second section “Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities Probes and Procedures for Interpretive Guidelines” includes the Compliance Principles and the “probes” or questions that facilities have used to understand what surveyors look for when making decisions about compliance. The revised ICF/IID guidelines and the new SOM Exhibit have been released as an advance copy. The final version of these documents, when published in the online SOM, may differ slightly from this advance copy. 

FMI: The advance copy can be found at http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/Survey-and-Cert-Letter-15-20.pdf.