Juan Luis Hospital Gets 3-Month CMS Extension As Survey Continues

ST. CROIX — The Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center will continue its participation in Medicare and Medicaid through December 31, 2015, as the facility made known via press release late Monday that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), has extended the Systems Improvement Agreement (SIA) by three months.

In a document (Systems Improvement Agreement Codicil) issued to the press by JFL, CMS made known that it needed more time to conduct its survey of the hospital, and gave itself three extra months to do so.

As part of the agreement, in lieu of requiring JFL to provide CMS with quarterly reports, the federal agency will hold a quarterly conference call update with Greely, the company JFL hired to help it execute the SIA, on or about October 7, and December 2, 2015. The parties will determine specific dates and times.

The Juan Luis Hospital was on the brink of losing its certification on Oct. 9, 2914, when CMS said it would withdraw its funding from the hospital due to alarming findings outlined in a damning 112-page report, following a CMS audit of the hospital in August.

JFL managed to divert disertification when hospital executives met with CMS officials in Baltimore and was given an extension, through to begin the process of fixing its deficiencies. Since then, JFL has undergone a number of changes, including re-establishing quorum on its St. Croix District Board, the body which provides oversight of JFL, and launching a search for top executive staff members.

An SIA is a time-limited contractual arrangement between a Medicare-accredited healthcare organization and CMS. SIAs have been used in nursing homes and organ transplant centers in the past, and recently have been implemented in hospitals.

Entering into an SIA provides more time for a healthcare organization to fix its deficiencies than is typically allotted from a validation or for-cause survey. In some cases, the timeframe has been extended to as long as 19 months.